


Choice

by Mengde



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-12
Updated: 2012-06-12
Packaged: 2017-11-07 14:26:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 30,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/432149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mengde/pseuds/Mengde
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Sora and his friends leave the Underworld behind, Auron is propelled towards an explosive confrontation, driven by fate and his own painful past. He will fight to prove it is his story and his ending... even if Organization XIII believes differently.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Auron fell back onto the grass and blew out a long sigh. "How much farther to Luca, I wonder."

The three of them had been walking all day, starting on the Mushroom Rock Road and making steady progress to the Mi'ihen Highroad. It was late afternoon, the sun was blazing overhead, and Auron, for all his discipline, was bone-tired and unwilling to go further. As was his nature, Jecht had pretended not to notice, but Braska had a tad more empathy and was arranging lodgings for them at a travel agency while Auron and Jecht waited outside.

"How the hell should I know?" Jecht asked. "Never been."

"It was a rhetorical question," Auron replied tersely, feeling his irritation spike. "I know you've never been to Luca."

"Then why'd you ask it?"

"Why does anyone ask a question? There, that's another."

"You bein' smart with me, Auron?"

"Peace," a new voice interrupted them. Braska had emerged from the travel agency and was standing over the two of them with an amused look on his face. The wind murmured as it swept over the vast, flat, green expanse of the Highroad and ruffled the summoner's robes. "I've obtained lodgings for the night. We'll continue on to Luca in the morning."

"Good," Jecht said, standing up. "'Bout time we got there, I say. Feels like we been traveling for ages."

Auron also stood up, gazing down the Highroad at where the city of Luca lay. He couldn't see it – its elevation was too low in comparison to the Highroad's – but he could almost feel it, as though he were within it already. Perhaps it was anticipation; perhaps it was fate. He couldn't say.

A family passed by, talking. Auron could spot a mother, father, two sons. They were apparently hoping to make it to Luca by nightfall, which he doubted was possible. The wind carried the mother's voice to him.

" _Now listen well all you who'd hear_ …"

Something stirred inside of Auron's memories. A childhood rhyme, that was it. The rest didn't make it to him, but he remembered it clearly. Braska also looked at the passing group and blinked several times, searching his memory. Then he said:

" _Now listen well all you who'd hear_

" _And hearken to this psalm_ …"

Auron finished it:

" _Forever will we live in fear_

"' _Till comes Eternal Calm_."

Braska smiled. "You were taught the rhyme as well?"

"I had forgotten it up until this point," Auron admitted. "I didn't think it had remained popular."

"Apparently some things never go out of fashion."

Jecht stretched and dusted himself off. "Hear, fear, psalm, calm. Kinda catchy. Can we go eat something now?"

Auron and Braska exchanged an amused glance, then headed after Jecht towards the travel agency. For a moment, Auron hesitated outside, gazing off in the direction of Luca again.

" _Now listen well all you who'd hear_

" _And hearken to this psalm,_

" _Forever will we live in fear_

"' _Till comes Eternal Calm._ "

He would have to remember it more often. With a small shrug, he stepped inside the travel agency and closed the door behind him.

* * *

**Choice**

**A Kingdom Hearts Fan Fiction**

**Authored by Mengde**

* * *

Auron shuddered in the darkness, wondering vaguely how long he had been here. It didn't particularly matter, since he had no way of measuring time, nor did he have any way out of the endless darkness he seemed to hang in, but it was still a question he'd like to ask, even if he didn't get an answer.

The last thing he remembered… it was difficult. All he knew was that he had been somewhere, looking after someone…

Zanarkand. Tidus. Jecht's son. He had made a promise, and suddenly darkness had engulfed him. The world seemed to spiral down an endless drain, and he felt as though he was stuck in a clog. Was it because he had been dead, an unsent? Auron had no theories beyond that. What he did know was that he had been here in an endless, enveloping darkness, and he felt as though his time here was coming to an end.

Something moved.

It was a heartening sign. Auron looked around for it, but he couldn't see what moved. He had detected movement, though, definitely. There it was again – it was as though the darkness itself was shifting, being replaced… A green light blossomed above him, and he realized that it wasn't anything but himself that was moving. He was being pulled up, up into some unknown light, but it was a far better prospect than staying wherever he was.

Auron rose through green flame, rocketed up in a giant pillar of reddish smoke, lightning crawling over and through him. He abruptly came to a halt and tasted air for the first time in what felt like forever. Granted, the air tasted like something had died nearby, but compared to the nothingness of the abyss from whence he'd came, it was a vast improvement.

As his eye adjusted to the light and the smoke cleared, Auron surveyed his surroundings. They were decidedly gloomy – dark, bluish-black stone, little light. An opening in what looked like a cave wall showed a vast, glowing green river of what Auron thought looked disturbingly like souls. Not pyreflies, but actual souls, souls with shape and substance.

If he had needed more of a hint that he was no longer in Spira, the occupants of the room he was in were themselves more than enough. Cowering in a corner were two small demons, one skeletally thin and blue, the other morbidly obese and purplish. Standing behind them was a giant, armored, ugly, anthropomorphic cat.

And in front of Auron stood a black-robed, blue-skinned, seven-foot-tall humanoid with baleful yellow eyes and hair of blue flame.

Auron stared at the apparition, wondering what it was. Even as he did, a name flowed into his mind: _Hades_. With it came a flood of other information: Olympian gods, the Underworld… and a name that came with such hatred that Auron had to stop himself from flinching: _Hercules_.

Hades winked slyly at Auron, as though to say _you're welcome_ for all the input. The Lord of the Underworld opened his mouth, revealing a set of sharp and unpleasant-looking fangs, and spoke in a surprisingly melodious voice. "Let's cut to the chase. Here's the deal I'm gonna offer you. I let you out of the slammer – no strings – you'll be free as a bird."

As he listened, Auron cast an absent glance over at the cat, whose name he now knew to be Pete, and the two demons, who were called Pain and Panic. Pete gave a rather sickly grin and waved.

"And all for one little job," Hades continued. "Fight Hercules, in the Coliseum… to the death!"

Auron looked Hades full in the face and sneered. It was all coming back to him, now – how to be alive. He'd been offered deals like this before, in distant memory. Everything seemed overly abrupt, with no chance for him to acclimate himself to what was going on, but he was sure that this was part of the god's strategy.

"This is _my_ story," Auron said. He reached over his shoulder and felt the reassuring presence of his giant cleaving sword, the Kotetsu. Pulling it from his back, Auron relaxed into a partial crouch, balancing the blade on his shoulder. "And you're not part of it."

Hades's smile evaporated and his face twisted itself into a snarl. "Did you forget who you're _talking_ to? I am the LORD OF THE DEAD!"

Auron snorted. "No wonder no one wants to die."

The god reared back. "You are FIRED!" Without warning his skin turned a bright red and his hair blazed up. Auron reacted instinctively, sweeping the Kotetsu around in a grand arc, connecting with and stopping cold the blazing-fast strike Hades threw in an attempt to take his head off. Auron fearlessly stared into the yellow eyes, daring the Lord of the Underworld to try to do more.

Hades's gaze abruptly slid off of Auron and over his shoulder. Taking a chance, Auron followed the gaze to the entrance of the room.

Standing there were three people: in the lead, a fourteen- or fifteen-year-old boy with unruly brown hair, blue eyes, and black clothing, wielding what looked like a strange cross between an oversized key and a sword. To his left stood an anthropomorphic dog in simple clothing with clear, honest eyes. He wielded a shield. To the boy's right stood a duck, the most overtly animalistic of the group, though he had definite humanoid qualities. He wore blue clothing and an unusual-looking cap and wielded a wand.

"Hades!" the duck squawked. Auron blinked; to see him was one thing, but to have him talk intelligibly was another thing entirely.

"You again?" Hades growled, letting his guard down.

Auron seized on the opportunity for all it was worth, broadsiding the god across the chest with the Kotetsu and slamming him back against the wall. "Fight!" He tried a follow-up blow, but Hades caught the sword almost effortlessly and threw Auron to the ground. The god's hands flared up with twin fireballs the size of his head and Auron braced himself, but the boy stepped in front of him, gripping his weapon determinedly.

"Get up!" the boy urged, then lunged at Hades, unleashing a flurry of quick blows. From behind him Auron heard what must have passed for the duck's battle cry a moment before the air around Hades crackled with lightning. The dog charged in shield-first, which was a tactic unorthodox enough that Auron supposed it might work. He gained his feet, ready to help the interlopers, but before he could they pulled away.

Confusion was etched into the boy's face as he drew back from Hades, who was untouched. A moment later the duck ceased his magical assault and said, "Something's wrong!"

"I feel kinda funny," the boy agreed, his tone dismayed.

Hades chuckled. "That's right! See, that's the thing. In the Underworld, heroes are zeroes – comes with the territory." His hands flared up again and he charged, almost taking Auron by surprise. The guardian slashed down at the incoming wall of flame, but Hades disappeared in a puff of smoke and reappeared to Auron's left.

"Go now!" Auron urged the boy, swinging around to face Hades.

"But I've gotta talk to Hades!" the boy protested.

"What was that?" Hades asked. He had his fingers in his ears – something that would have been amusing if he was not trying to kill them.

"We can't fight him here!" Auron snapped at the boy. "We have to go – now!" The guardian grabbed at the boy's arm and pulled, but he didn't budge – he was surprisingly strong for someone so young. Swallowing an oath, Auron let go and made for the door, leaping over a fireball Hades hurled at him as he ran. The sound of frenzied footfalls came from behind and Auron surmised that the boy had finally gotten the futility of the situation into his head.

The four of them raced down a stone corridor and emerged out of a gate into a vast cavern with narrowly connected platforms of rock suspended over a lake of souls. The boy and the dog immediately closed the massive stone doors behind the party and then leaned against them, panting.

"Is he gone?" the duck asked.

"Don't count on it," Auron replied. He cast his gaze around the chamber, waiting for it – there. Hades appeared in a puff of smoke next to the boy and grinned.

"Leaving so soon?"

No more words were necessary. Auron turned and ran, hoping that the three outsiders would follow him as well. Something appeared in front of him in a blast of dark energy – a shadow made real, with form and hollow white eyes that pierced him –

The boy swept his weapon through the shadow's head and it was ripped to dark shreds. More appeared and Auron didn't hesitate this time, hacking and slashing with abandon at them. They fought their way down the narrow stone bridge between the two platforms. Auron found he began to pick up a rhythm: kill one of the shadows, twist out of the way of the boy to let him follow up, repeat. Whoever he was, he was surprisingly agile.

Hades was waiting for them when they got to the exit. The Lord of the Underworld did not look happy at all. More of the shadows sprang up around him and Auron did some quick calculations in his head. They would assuredly have to fight their way through the mass of darkness that was looming ahead of them, but perhaps there was a better way of going about it…

If there was, he certainly didn't have time to tell his companions. The boy charged in, swinging his weapon wildly, sending shreds of darkness flying left and right. Auron suppressed a grimace and waded in after him, almost absentmindedly batting a fireball out of the way. _Yes_. His instincts were returning to him, long-unused combat muscles flexing. This was good.

Hades let out an inhuman shriek and redoubled his efforts to blow them into char. The boy shouted something incoherent, which his companions apparently took as a signal, because they all broke away and dodged past Hades through the exit. Auron was right on their heels, narrowly avoiding a parting fireball that the angry god bequeathed them.

They emerged in yet another cavern, this one much smaller and more enclosed than the previous. Auron stopped to catch his breath, feeling the adrenaline rushing through him. Quite the way to come back to life.

"You're really good."

Auron started and looked down at the boy, who was staring up at him admiringly. The blue eyes were wide with what Auron was forced to conclude was awe. "Are you some kind of hero?"

He shook his head. "No, I'm no hero. I'm just an…"

"Huh?"

For a moment Auron lowered his head, withdrawing into himself. _Old fool_ , that was what he had been about to say. He wasn't old, though – barely into his late twenties. It was years of strife that had aged him prematurely, the pain of seeing his two best friends go off to fight and die hopelessly in a cycle that would not be broken. Could he possibly expect someone as young as this boy to understand?

"Auron."

The boy exchanged a bemused glance with the dog, and Auron resisted the urge to roll his eye. "My name."

"I'm Sora," the boy volunteered with a grin.

Immediately following that, the duck jumped onto Sora's shoulders. "Donald," he offered in that irritating voice.

The dog followed suit, jumping onto the duck's shoulders rather comedically. "Goofy!" The extra weight was too much and they collapsed onto the cavern floor in a heap.

Auron stared at them and worked his jaw, wondering at how their combat prowess could have translated into the sorry sight he was currently faced with. "It seems we were fated to meet. Maybe you need a guardian."

"Guardian?" Sora asked, getting up and dusting himself off. A flash of déjà vu hit Auron, who dismissed it on the grounds of absurdity. "Thanks, but no thanks." The boy motioned to his companions and they took off into the twisting tunnels of the cavern. Auron chuckled to himself at their enthusiasm and followed.

His sense of time was still off. It seemed to be only a very short while before they emerged into another large cavern, one which ended in a large, very obviously locked door.

"What?" Donald exclaimed, staring at the door. "It's closed!"

The three of them ran forward and tried to push it open, straining and not getting anywhere. Auron eyed the lock and then looked at Sora's weapon. He wondered whether he should wait for the trio to get it through their heads or if he should speak up.

"Come on, open!" Sora exclaimed. He withdrew from the door, panting, and looked at the lock as though seeing it for the first time. His weapon appeared in his hand in a flash of light and Auron tried not to sigh. The boy was strong – headstrong, too – but he wasn't particularly bright.

"Will that open it?"

"Yeah. I think so." He started to point his weapon at the lock when there was a sudden roar from behind them.

"Hurry," Auron said, taking up his sword again. Amongst the foggy memories and information floating through his head, he recalled very clearly an image he'd divined from Hades's mind during the brief initial information dump: a huge, three-headed dog, black as midnight and every bit as unpleasant as its master.

He looked over his shoulder and saw blue points of light percolating about the tip of Sora's weapon. They flared and fused into a solid, pulsing mass of white energy before shooting out in a beam that penetrated the lock on the door and evaporated it.

That was when Cerberus attacked.

Donald and Goofy heaved at the doors and began to open them just as the dog seemingly dropped out of nowhere and lunged, teeth gnashing. Auron grimaced and slammed his sword into the nearest set of killer canines, straining against the immense bulk of the beast, then freed his weapon and slammed the creature across the face with it. He heard the trio making for the door; that was good. He wasn't sure if he could take the beast alone, but it was better that they got out alive.

Then he heard the footfalls pounding towards him and he knew that Sora, the fool, was going to help.

Auron considered his options. Three heads that could attack from eight directions all told, which meant twenty-four lethal points from the creature's front alone. Factor in its massive size and they had a real problem on their hands.

Sora cut right to the chase, diving in headfirst. Auron followed, analyzing possible vectors of attack, labeled some of them suicidal. Sora, naturally, took the most decisively suicidal one – a straight-on jump at the center head, weapon already swinging in for an attack.

He stopped dead when the center head reared back and the two other heads snapped in, catching him flat-footed between them and trapping him in midair. Auron made ready to leap in and pull Sora free, but he saw the boy's eyes – focused, clear. He obviously had a plan, and it abruptly became clear when the middle head snapped back down in an attempt to bite Sora's torso off.

Sora jammed his weapon into the center head's jaw. He got a foothold on the head, steadied himself, then freed his weapon in time to batter aside an attack from the right head. Auron saw him visibly gather his power, then leap and rocket back down to land a stunningly powerful bash across the crown of the center head's skull.

Cerberus staggered, wavering back and forth on its feet, and Auron took the opportunity to deliver the coup de grace, turning on his heel to gather his momentum and then transitioning into a flying leap that brought the broad side of the Kotetsu into bone-jarring contact with the left head of the demon dog. It slammed into the center head, which slammed into the right head, and the whole amalgamation of fur and claws and teeth slammed unconscious to the ground.

The dog stirred a moment later, but neither Auron nor Sora gave it a chance to attack again. They made for the door, moving as though all the legions of hell were behind them, a possibility that Auron wasn't ruling out just yet.

Then they burst out into relatively open air. Auron staggered past Sora, Donald, and Goofy, who were making faces at the downed Cerberus, and took several deep, cleansing breaths, feeling the adrenaline begin to drain out of him. Insofar as he knew, they'd made it.

That was when Auron looked up and saw a figure in a black cloak standing at the other edge of the cavern they were in. He frowned and started to ask Sora if he knew who it was, but the figure disappeared into a flowing hole of darkness. A moment later, it reappeared and engulfed the guardian before disappearing.

When it faded and Sora belatedly turned around, Auron was gone.


	2. Chapter 2

Auron blinked and found that he was no longer being swallowed by darkness. Instead he stood in the midst of an endless realm. It swam before his eye, shifting cool colors and streams of information screaming past at breakneck speed. Trying to orient himself, Auron looked down to find that there was no floor, and the place he was in went on infinitely beneath his feet.

A terrible sense of vertigo gripped him for a moment and his stomach flipped over. Blindly, Auron flailed around for something, anything to grab onto. The first thing his hand encountered was somebody's arm.

Trying not to look down again, Auron pinned his gaze on the arm, then followed it up to the black-clad shoulder to what had been the hooded head in the Underworld. Instead of the hood, however, he encountered a face: fair-skinned, green-eyed, youthful, with blonde hair that stood up on the top of the young man's head and was left to lie flat on the sides. Auron uttered a wordless, strangled sound of surprise at the sight.

What was even more surprising, however, was the young man's reaction. His eyes grew as big as saucers and he screamed.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAGH!"

He started jerking violently on his arm in an attempt to free it from Auron's grip, who held on as though his life depended on it. "Let! Go! Of! Me! Dammit!"

"Tell me who you are and where you've taken me," Auron replied, seizing control of the situation as well as the young man's collar. "Be quick about it."

"Leggo of the merchandise first!"

"So sorry," Auron said, disengaging himself from the other, who began to dust himself off, miffed. A moment later the young man looked back up, mouth open to deliver some kind of rebuke, and found himself staring down the length of the Kotetsu, the stabbing point of which was a bare centimeter away from the tip of his nose.

"Parley?" he asked weakly.

Auron frowned. "Excuse me?"

"Don't cut me up just yet, thanks. I'll be more than happy to tell you everything you want to know – unless Xemnas wouldn't want me to tell you it."

"Xemnas? Is that your leader?"

The young man started to speak again, then his expression became pained. "Uh… yeah. Whoops. Could you not mention that I told you his name?"

"I could be persuaded if you told me yours," Auron replied. "And answered my other questions as well."

"Take it easy, take it easy. Just put the sword down – I don't function well under pressure, thanks." Auron lowered the Kotetsu, deciding not to return it to his back just yet, and nodded for the other to proceed. "Okay, then. I'm Demyx, Number Nine of the Organization."

"The Organization?" Auron asked.

"Organization XIII. It's the guys I work for – with – whatever. To make a long story short, we're interested in you, Auron. Yeah," he added at the look of surprise on Auron's face, "we know who you are. In fact, I'd say we know a lot more about you than you would expect."

"You either have good sources," Auron said, "or you're bluffing and you're a better liar than I gave you credit for. Where are we?"

"This is the realm of darkness," Demyx replied. "We use it to traverse the worlds. Much more efficient way to travel than the gummi ship Sora uses."

More and more questions – but Auron focused in on Sora. "You know Sora. Who is he?"

"He's the Keyblade's chosen one. Also… well. You wouldn't understand unless I went and explained a whole lot more than would be wise. Take it from me that he's bad news."

Auron choked down a smirk. Demyx's attempts to ingratiate himself were obviously meant to relax Auron's guard, or perhaps make him more amiable to any propositions the young man offered – he wasn't sure. "Of course he is. Why did you bring me here?"

"I told you we're interested in you, Auron. That interest extends all the way to the top, so Xemnas told me to cordially invite you to dinner with him at our headquarters. Seeing as how you've got no transportation, he also told me to be your valet."

"And if I refuse your cordial invitation?"

Demyx grinned crookedly. "I could just leave you here."

With a shrug, Auron returned the Kotetsu to his back. "Fine with me." He turned around and started to walk away.

"Wait wait wait wait wait!" Neither of them had footsteps, considering they were stepping on nothing, but Auron could almost hear the frantic scurrying sounds of Demyx's pursuit. "Xemnas – _really_ please don't mention I said his name – would kill me if I didn't bring you. Do it as a favor to me, please? All he wants is to have dinner with you."

Auron looked over his shoulder at the young man and pinned him with his gaze, then turned back around. "Supposing I accept the invitation, what do I gain from it? Are you to make me a guarantee that I can hear what Xemnas has to say and then leave unmolested if I so choose?"

"I can guarantee you anything you want," Demyx said. "None of it would mean anything, though. I've already told you everything I was told to tell and then some. Jeez, they picked the wrong guy for this one. You wouldn't have screwed around this way with Saïx."

Auron cocked an eyebrow. "Who?"

Demyx's expression became even more pained than when he had slipped Xemnas's name. "Nobody, nobody."

"A fine choice of words, Number Nine," a new voice said in a contemptuous baritone. Auron resisted the urge to jump and turned around again. Behind him had appeared a new black-cloaked figure, only this one wore no hood. Bronze skin, intense orange eyes, sweeping grey hair, cruelly aristocratic features: he had all of these, but more than anything the man reminded Auron of power. He reeked of pure and concentrated power.

"Thanks," Demyx said. He had turned a lovely shade of green.

"Return to your surveillance duties," the man, who Auron was almost positive was Xemnas, commanded. "The next time I require someone brought to me, I will do it myself. You are as incompetent a valet as you are a musician."

Demyx flinched like he'd been struck, then mutely nodded and disappeared into another swirling portal of darkness. Auron eyed the spot where he'd been a moment before, then turned his attention back to the new visitor. "I take it you're Xemnas."

The man chuckled. "That fool Demyx gave my name away so easily, did he?"

"He also asked me not to tell you."

"I imagine he did. You are a cruel one, Auron."

"Not at all," Auron replied. "I am simply disinclined to help him – or you – in any way. Under your direction, he effectively kidnapped me from the Underworld, where I know at the very least I had allies and a ground under my feet, so to speak. I owe you and your Organization nothing."

"This is true," Xemnas acknowledged. "I would like you to hear our offer, at the very least. And while I have no doubt as to your strength of will, you are not properly equipped to enter or leave this realm of darkness by your own volition. If you will allow it, I will take the two of us to our headquarters for a more informal… chat."

Auron narrowed his good eye at Xemnas. "I think you could do that whether I allowed it or not."

"True. However, a good host respects his guest's wishes… so long as they do not conflict with his own."

"How altruistic."

"Quite." The blackness engulfed Auron again, and when it cleared he found himself at what seemed like the very edge of existence.

He stood atop a bone-white platform, suspended in infinite black space. A long, winding path rose up to the platform. Looking down, Auron could see that there was a vast white castle-fortress beneath them, and beneath the castle was an immense city, with buildings higher than he'd ever seen, full of lights and color… and it was dead, all of it. Nothing stirred in that place. All the activity of a city at night was missing. The only thing that remained were the lights, flickering on and off at times or strobing in an attempt to catch his attention for some forgotten purpose.

"Welcome," Xemnas said, "to the Altar of Naught."

Auron returned his attention to the man, and saw that he stood framed by a partial moon that hung overhead, much closer than Auron would have thought possible. "This place is the Altar of Naught?" he asked somewhat stupidly, overwhelmed by the sheer scale of what he was witnessing.

"Immediately here, yes. The world we are in… well. We call it The World That Never Was."

Auron stared at him, wondering what he could mean, then turned his attention to the table that had sprung up out of nowhere. It was a long table with a chair at each end, and was the same terrible white as the castle beneath it.

"Please sit," Xemnas said, taking his own seat. Auron followed suit. "Thank you. Luxord will be here in a moment to serve us. I would have asked Xaldin – he is the best cook among us – but he is currently engaged."

Auron nodded slowly, taking it all in. "Xemnas, Xaldin, Demyx, Luxord, Saïx… how many of you are there?" He did not miss the twitch of one of Xemnas's eyebrows when he mentioned Saïx's name; Demyx was not going to be happy at all.

"As fit with the name of our Organization, there were thirteen, all told. However, there was a small conflict some time ago, as well as another, somewhat related incident, and now we number but seven."

Nodding as he heard footfalls coming up the winding path, Auron asked, "Where do all of you hail from?"

"That is a very good question," Xemnas said. "First, I think you ought to decide what you would like for dinner. Luxord is here."

Auron looked up and saw another black-cloaked man: blonde hair, blue eyes, a neatly trimmed beard. The newcomer, Luxord, spoke in a precise, accented voice. "Greetings. What will you be having, then?"

"Given that I have a choice, I haven't been presented with a selection," Auron replied evenly.

Luxord waved a hand dismissively. "Say what you want and I'll deliver it to you, fresh. Save for existence itself, nothing in it is terribly difficult to obtain."

Considering his options for a moment, Auron ruled out the possibility that they were going to poison him. If they wanted him dead, they could havhie left him in that realm of darkness or tried to kill him themselves – he could sense the power emanating from them, regardless if they tried to conceal it. Whatever they were, they were certainly not human, and he wondered for a moment if they even needed to eat.

"Some sake, then. And a plate of gyōza, as well – age-gyōza if possible; I prefer my dumplings deep-fried."

"A minute, honored guest," Luxord said with no small amount of sarcasm. He disappeared into another one of the peculiar black vortexes that the Organization members seemed to favor.

"Do you even need to eat?" Auron asked Xemnas after the apparently-unwilling waiter and cook had disappeared.

Xemnas shrugged. "Occasionally it is beneficial for us to eat. One cannot survive by the power of darkness alone." The way he said that made Auron very much doubt its veracity.

"What are you, then?" Auron pressed. "To command this power over what you call the realm of darkness, to not have to eat as I do, means that you certainly cannot be human."

The leader of Organization XIII laced his fingers together and was silent for a long while. Finally he said, "I take it you encountered the Heartless while you were escaping from that fool god."

 _Shadows made real, hollow eyes that pierced him_ – "Yes," Auron replied. "That's what they're called, then?"

"Indeed. Heartless are creatures spawned from the darkness in people's hearts, Auron. A heart can remain pure if it walks in the light, but if it should open itself to the darkness, a Heartless is germinated from the darkness already present within the heart and the original being is lost." Xemnas snapped his fingers –

Auron leaped half out of his seat when a ball of darkness coalesced over the table and disgorged one of the creatures he'd seen in the Underworld. It landed on the table and looked around with its hollow eyes, staring blindly at Auron, its antennae twitching.

"They ally with whoever is the strongest, or they merely go off on instinct and attack nearby hearts. We of the Organization sometimes use them, but they are crude things, easily dispatched by those with strength to resist them." Xemnas snapped his fingers again and the Heartless was swallowed back up by the darkness.

"Then you are not Heartless yourselves," Auron said.

"No, we are not. The strength of any given Heartless is directly proportional to the strength of the being that it was born from. At times, when a being of particularly strong will and strength is taken by the darkness, when the heart is consumed and a Heartless born from it, the body left behind begins to act with a will of its own." Xemnas snapped his fingers again and a ball of white energy coalesced above the table.

Out of it spewed a long strand of white, which twitched and rearranged itself into a vaguely humanoid, swaying creature. The feature that struck Auron immediately was its head, or lack thereof – a white hood with a zipper across its front was where the head should be, and inside the hood was a grotesque sight that barely passed for a face. On top of the hood was an emblem that Auron noted having seen on walls of the castle beneath him.

"This," Xemnas said, "is a Nobody."

Auron gazed at it, feeling a shiver of revulsion go through him. The creature disappeared back into the ball of white light, and he said, "And you share some kind of tie with this creature?"

"I am the greatest of all the Nobodies, the ruler of a nonexistent kingdom, a no-life king," Xemnas replied. "My fellow Organization members and I became Nobodies, but we did not lose our faculties, only our hearts. We remember what it was like to have them, and that makes us special." His eyes seemed to focus on something far away and unattainable. "Nobodies do not exist at all, Auron. We are the dead that never died, the living that were never born. If we are to ever truly exist, we must have hearts."

Luxord abruptly reappeared with Auron's drink and a plate of deep-fried dumplings. He set them on the table in front of the guardian, gave him a short nod, and disappeared.

Auron found he had an appetite after all, so he began to eat while Xemnas continued. "That, in the end, is all we wish to do: exist. We have already taken steps to make this dream of ours possible, and we want your help."

The sake was superb, and Auron savored it before swallowing and replying, "And how would I be able to help you?"

"Our numbers, as I have told you, have been lessened of late," the leader of the Organization said. "We are looking for new recruits, in a fashion. Xaldin is off procuring one, actually – or at least he was. According to his last report, things had gone rather awry."

"How do you go about… _recruiting_ people?" Auron asked, a vague suspicion stirring in the back of his mind.

Xemnas shrugged. "Much like this, actually. We approach them, give them a chance to hear us out… If you were to help us, Auron, the rewards would be beyond your capacity to imagine. Once we are made whole, once we exist, our gratitude would be eternal. And on top of that," he added almost offhandedly, "I would think you would have a personal interest in seeing our goal fulfilled."

Why Xemnas thought that, Auron did not know, but he had heard enough. "I am not motivated by the promise of rewards or gratitude," he said. "From what I have seen and heard, your aspirations may be noble, but ends certainly do not justify the means, and your means are not ones I would abide with."

Instead of the explosion Auron expected, Xemnas merely nodded. "Of course, I suspected as much. You are not the first to have said no, Auron, and I respect your reasoning in doing so. However, you will still help us."

"You cannot force me to aid you against my will," Auron said flatly, rising from the chair. "Thank you for your food and hospitality, but I would like to be returned to the Underworld now."

"You see, Auron," Xemnas said, rising himself and continuing as if he had not heard Auron speak, "once we force you to open your heart to darkness, you will be transformed. A Heartless will be born from you, a Heartless which we will destroy – but a Nobody will also be born, and we will make him one of our own. You will want nothing more than to help us achieve our goal, because you will want with all your nonexistent being to exist."

"Enough of this," Auron growled, pulling the Kotetsu from his back. "I'm leaving. Now."

"Roxuan, the Tragic Blade!" Xemnas cried, his eyes blazing as he advanced down the length of the table. "I can see it now, Auron. You will make a fearsome Nobody."

Auron steeled himself, every fiber of his being expecting a fight… and then a voice resounded clearly in his head: _jump._

Without hesitation, Auron did just that. He whirled, ran to the edge of the Altar of Naught, and flung himself out into empty space.


	3. Chapter 3

It was a long way down to the castle below him, but not so long a way that, a bare second after having jumped, Auron didn't begin to feel that he had made a rather fatal mistake.

His immediate and gut-wrenching fears, while entirely justified by the situation, proved unfounded a moment later when another portal of darkness opened up beneath him and he fell right into it. A moment later he emerged back in the realm of darkness, all his momentum gone as he felt his feet settle on nonexistent ground. Looking around, Auron located his would-be rescuer quickly enough: another black-clad figure, though this one had his hood off already.

The young man had a striking appearance: jade-green eyes coupled with fiery red hair that seemed to explode off of his head. He stood with his arms crossed, one foot tapping, looking at Auron measuringly. Auron returned the stare and the man nodded.

"So. Guess you heard me after all."

"Yes. How did you do that?"

"Nothing special. I opened up a pinhole portal just inside your ear and shouted into my end of it. Works wonders." The thought of having one of those portals inside his head was extremely unnerving, and Auron tried not to think about what might have happened if the so-called pinhole had swept through his brain or some equally important organ.

"Was it worth the risk?"

"To get you away from Xemnas without him realizing it was me that did it? Sure."

"Who are you, then?"

"The name's Axel," the redhead said. "Got it memorized?"

"Yes." Auron's reply seemed to catch Axel off-guard. How many people responded to what was obviously a rhetorical question? The guardian suppressed a smile at old memories. "You wanted to get me away from Xemnas. I appreciate it, but for some reason I doubt I appreciate it for the proper reasons."

Axel gave an elaborate shrug. "Now that's the thing, isn't it? You're probably thinking, 'Guy's wearing the same clothes as Xemnas, he's gotta be a Nobody and a member of the Organization, so why's he screwing with his allies?'"

"Some people are just basely treacherous," Auron said flatly. "I don't think that would be you, though."

"If only you knew," Axel countered. "Nope. For reasons I'd rather not elaborate on, I've had sort of a break with the Organization. They may not know it yet, or maybe they do – it doesn't really matter, I'm going on the assumption they don't. Right now I have some stuff to do that'll involve Sora and I don't want you getting in the way."

Auron raised an eyebrow. "Really. To be precise, you didn't want me under the direction of your former allies to get in the way."

"Exactly. See, that's the thing. Right now, whatever hinders the Organization is basically a plus for me. I don't know why Xemnas is interested in you. To be honest, I'm not even sure if he is. He's usually never concerned himself with getting new recruits; that's always been Xigbar's and Xaldin's job."

"That doesn't concern me. What concerns me is what you intend to do now that you've gotten me away from Xemnas."

"That all depends, Auron," Axel replied. He grinned and pointed his hands at Auron like a pair of loaded guns – index fingers extended, thumbs standing straight up. "It depends on _you._ What do you want to do?"

"I haven't given it any thought," Auron told him. "So far all I've had a chance to do is barely escape from the Underworld alive, only to be kidnapped by Demyx and brought to Xemnas for dinner."

"Xemnas wouldn't eat you, y'know."

"What is the heart, Axel?" Auron demanded. "The soul, perhaps? What defines a man as being who he is? If Xemnas wants to take away my heart, he would do better to eat me – I would prefer it."

"Sheez, don't rub it in," Axel sighed. "Least you got the option of saying that. But at least I know you wouldn't cooperate. You'd fight 'em, right?"

"Of course."

"There's still the small problem of your not having a snowball's chance in hell of actually winning against any of them," the redhead said almost offhandedly. "If they get to you, they _will_ break you – I've seen it happen."

"I'll be careful," Auron said, forcing himself not to be sardonic. "Return me to the Underworld – I'll pick up things from where I left off there."

"That's what you want to do? Go back to the Underworld." Axel threw up his hands and began to pace about, stalking back and forth like a frustrated predator. "Wouldn't you rather go somewhere safer, Auron? This _is_ the realm of darkness. I could send you anywhere in existence. Chances are there's someplace you'd be safe."

"If Xemnas is to be believed," Auron said, "then I was just taken to the one place that is outside of existence, and I was not safe even there. Better to return me to a place that I know at least a small amount."

"Better for you, yes. Better for me? No. The Organization's gonna find you if I send you back there, no doubt about that. And if I drop you on the back end of reality, they'll think to look for you there, too. I guess I'll just have to leave you here."

Auron raised a hand to try to slow the man down. This turn of events was not going in his favor. "Why?"

"They'll find you anywhere in existence and anywhere out of existence as well. Lucky us, then – the realm of darkness is somewhere in between. Sure, they can come and go as they please, but this place is infinitely big. Finding you here would be like finding a needle in a haystack the size of the universe."

Now Auron definitely did not like where this was heading. "I'm not going to go with them peaceably, Axel. I'm not going to become their pawn."

Axel shrugged. "Given enough time, Auron, the Organization can turn anybody into anything they want. Sorry, but this is really better for you, too."

The Nobody was not extraordinarily fast by anyone's standards, but Auron still did not see the blow coming. It rocked him back on his feet and he staggered, struggled to remain upright, failed, fell.

Axel stood over him and grimaced. "Sorry. We mighta been pals, who knows. I wish things could be different, but that's how it goes. If I'm ever gonna see my friend again, I gotta deny the Organization every weapon they have that could kill Sora."

Auron's vision began to blur and he struggled to focus. "Your… friend?"

"Yeah. Only one I've ever had." The redhead turned and began to walk away. "Have a good one. Sorry again…"

As he succumbed to the sweet embrace of unconsciousness, Auron found he could hold no enmity for Axel. If it came down to finding Braska and Jecht again… well.

He would do the same.

* * *

"Look at those two, Auron," Jecht said in a low tone, indicating the pair with a jerk of his head. "Pretty good-lookin', eh? Why don't you go over and introduce yourself?"

Auron looked at the two women standing behind the stall in the middle of the market square in Luca. Identical twins, both with beautiful features, long auburn hair, piercing green eyes… and they were selling riddles. An unusual trade to ply, and Auron couldn't estimate what kind of market there was, but they seemed to get on well enough.

"No thank you," Auron replied stolidly. "I have no business with them."

"It's easy," Jecht persisted. "Just go up and introduce yourself. Say you wanna buy a riddle, then go, 'Wait!' Throw your hands up real dramatically. 'I know the answer before you even tell me the riddle! The solution is a date with me tonight, dinner at that restaurant we passed that was part aquarium and part eatery, I didn't really remember the name, maybe you two know it.'"

"Its name is the Manari," Braska said from behind them. "And you know we're only staying in Luca one night."

"It'll be fine," Jecht said. Auron blinked and realized the man was behind him. "Now… get ready… get set…"

Auron had an awful premonition a half second before Jecht yelled "GO!" and gave him a hearty shove towards the twins' stall. Both green-eyed gazes swiveled around and locked onto him – turning back was at this point impossible. He took a moment to reassure himself that this could be nowhere near as painful as facing down fiends, then stepped forward and nodded to both of them.

"Good day. My name is Auron, and I would like a riddle." He produced a five-gil piece from his pocket and handed it over.

"Certainly," the one on the left said. "We will start you off easy – this is an old classic. My sister here is a pathological liar. I tell nothing but the truth."

"That is false," the one on the right said. "The opposite is true."

"Which one of us tells the truth and which the lies?" they both asked in unison. "Make your choice."

Auron had to stop and consider this. He remembered hearing about something similar before, but he couldn't remember the circumstances… oh. Now he remembered. The version of the riddle that one person told was that a traveler was heading to Guadosalam and needed to take one of two paths. One path led to Guadosalam; the other led off into a fiend-infested area. There were two Guado at the fork, but one was a fiend in disguise: the Guado was trustworthy but the fiend was a liar. In order to determine the correct path to take to Guadosalam and not to his untimely demise, the traveler had to ask the two Guado where they lived. The real Guado would point to Guadosalam; the false Guado, being a liar, would also point to Guadosalam.

This time, however, there were no conditions like in the telling of the riddle that Auron had heard. In fact, he hadn't been given any clues at all. He wasn't sure if this riddle was even solvable. One twin said the other lied and that she always told the truth, and the other said that she told the truth and the first lied…

To what extent could he trust the honest one's claims? Or one of them could be telling a half-truth – she did not always tell the truth, contrary to what she stated, but she was being honest about the other being a complete liar. Auron's frown deepened as he considered the conundrum from all sides in an attempt to reason out an answer.

Abruptly, he came to a sudden realization that made the best sense out of all the answers he'd come up with. It was a trick question.

"You," he said, indicating the twin on the right, "are the one who tells the truth."

"Your reasoning?" the two women asked.

"The riddle would be unsolvable if it wasn't structured precisely as it is. Your sister says she tells nothing but the truth and that you tell nothing but lies. You say that it's false and the opposite is true. It is all in the interpretation of 'the opposite is true.' Supposing I interpreted it as meaning that you were the one who told only the truth and your sister was a liar – we would be stuck at her lying about you always telling the truth, which would make you a liar, which would mean you were lying about the opposite being true, and so forth, and it cycles endlessly and unsolvably.

"However, if I interpret 'the opposite is true' to be not that you tell the truth, but only that your sister does not tell the truth and instead tells lies, she would be lying about you being a liar, which would make you the one who tells the truth, which does not repeat over and over because you never said she was a liar. That is how I reasoned it out."

"A valiant guess, but an incorrect one," the woman he had identified as the truth-teller said.

Auron was startled, but not miffed. He'd been so sure… but it had only been five gil, and who cared that much about a riddle at any rate? "Ah. What would the correct answer be?"

"We will leave that for you to discover on your own," the sister on the left said. "Good day."

Auron nodded and gave them both a short bow, then turned around and headed back towards Jecht and Braska. Behind him, one of the twins said something wryly to the other, something that he could not manage to catch; nor could he recall it, regardless of how many times he came back to the riddle and tried to see where he had gone wrong. This time, however, what the woman said rung out clearly in his mind: " _Little does he know we're both liars._ "

* * *

"Are you alive?"

Auron cracked his good eye open and found himself looking into yet another black-hooded face. "I suppose it depends upon who's asking," he replied. "Are you with Organization XIII?"

"No."

"You wear their attire."

"You shouldn't judge based solely upon appearances."

"True." If this newcomer wanted Auron dead, he could have easily killed the guardian when he was unconscious. It was probably safe to trust him, at least to some extent.

"Let me help you up." The figure extended a hand and Auron grasped it, getting to his feet. He would normally have surveyed his surroundings but he was still very obviously in the realm of darkness.

"Thank you. I suppose it's fortuitous you found me here. My name is Auron; what is yours?"

The figure hesitated, crossing its arms. "I wish I could say," it – he, Auron assumed from the deepness of the voice – said. "But I'm not sure who I am any more."

Auron watched the man closely. He wasn't sure if he liked this new development; the possibility of rescue was certainly one he would like to consider viable at this point, but rescue by someone who did not know who he was could be more dangerous than staying here.

"Perhaps I can help," Auron said, moving to the figure and placing a hand on his shoulder. "As thanks for your finding me."

"I don't need thanks," the man replied, brushing Auron's hand off. "Here – I assume you're stranded. Tell me where you want to go and I'll open you a portal out of the realm of darkness that will take you there."

"Clearly this meeting was preordained," Auron insisted. He didn't put much stock in fate, but the chances of this particular lost individual in need of help, finding him in the realm of darkness after Axel's estimation of it being impossible – he could not pass up this opportunity to do something. "How did you find me?"

"I was wandering. I didn't have a destination in mind; I was just trying to remember who I was."

Auron motioned for the man to seat himself and did the same. "Before you open me any portal, I will help you remember who you are."

"How? I've been trying for so long now. I can remember when I did remember, and I can remember times when I thought I was someone else, but now… I just don't know."

"Remembering who you are is a simple affair," Auron assured the man. "Tell me this: who is it you wish to protect?"

The man jerked as though he'd been struck by lightning. He sat straight up and Auron could feel his gaze burning into him. It was impossible to see anything beneath the hood, but Auron could sense it: the mouth forming around a name, two names, tasting them, long-forgotten or repressed or lost memories surfacing and asserting themselves.

"Sora," the man said. "Kairi."

Auron nodded encouragingly. "Why do you want to protect them?"

"They're my friends," came the immediate reply. "Friends… more than that, beyond friendship or being siblings."

"And why are you wandering here, lost, instead of protecting them?"

"I can't let them see me like this," the man said. His shoulders hunched and he seemed to buckle in on himself, his tone becoming plaintive. "They… would hate me."

Jecht's face came to Auron, hovering at the forefront of his mind. All the enmity that had built up between them, the mutual misunderstanding, the clashes of opinion and priorities produced by intrinsically different lives, all of it had meant nothing the moment Jecht had asked Auron to take care of his son for him.

"If they are closer to you than siblings," Auron said, "I doubt it. That will be for you to face and deal with at a later date. For now, look ahead to when you meet them. You will see Sora. Greet him."

"Hello, Sora," the man said, sounding like he was choking on the words.

"And he will say…?"

"Hello…" Again Auron could sense the man tasting a new old name, one that was surging out of the catacombs of distant thought to erupt into the present. "Hello, Riku."

"You see?" Auron asked. "You know exactly who you are. The people you want to protect define you."

Slowly, Riku nodded and got to his feet. "Thank you, Auron. I'll have to remember that." Something changed in his stance, or perhaps it was Auron's sense of him, but regardless of what it was, it was a change for the better. "Now, as _my_ thanks to _you_ , where do you want to go?"

"The Underworld," Auron replied. "I don't know what I'll do from there, but the road will make itself known to me. It always has."

Riku snapped his fingers and a portal opened next to him, oscillating wildly in the faux-light of the realm of darkness. "Here you are," he said. "I have one request, though."

"Name it."

"If you meet Sora again, don't tell him that you've seen me. If he asks, pretend you don't know me. I've already burdened one person with my secret and I don't want to do it again, but… please."

"Whatever your reasons, I have no doubt they are important to you," Auron said. "I will not tell Sora anything of you."

Riku looked visibly more relaxed, though Auron could still see nothing of his face. "Thank you, Auron. Perhaps we'll meet again."

Stepping into the portal, Auron agreed, "Perhaps we will. Goodbye, Riku." The darkness closed in around him and Riku was gone.


	4. Chapter 4

The darkness was replaced by dim light, and Auron was back in the Underworld. He looked around, felt the ground under his feet, and knew it was real. There was a substantial difference from the last time he'd been here, however, and it was mostly concerned with the massive coliseum looming in the distance across the black river.

Auron stared at the edifice and remembered the massive dump of information that Hades had given him. He searched the memories that were not his own and found a name: the Underdrome. The whole history asserted itself and he knew why it had suddenly appeared. It had been under lock and key – to be precise, an unbreakable lock without a key.

Putting two and two together was not difficult, especially when the perpetrator was standing ten feet away, staring at the coliseum. Sora, Donald, and Goofy were at the bank of the Styx, looking at the structure like it would come alive at any moment.

Wondering how much time he'd passed unconscious in the realm of darkness, Auron approached them. He faintly heard Donald ask, "What's that?"

"The Underdrome," Auron replied. All three of them jumped and turned to look at him, eyes wide and faces bright with recognition. So they didn't think he'd abandoned them; that was good. "Fiends of the Underworld once clashed there – battle after battle," he continued, seeing the images inside his mind. "But Zeus didn't like the senseless violence, so he locked the place up."

Sora raised an eyebrow and looked at the coliseum again. "How'd it get _un_ locked?"

"Some fool must have broken the seal," Auron said, a light probe to see how much Sora knew about his own action – which, if his last statement was to be believed, was nothing.

"What an idiot," the young man said derisively. Auron restrained a chuckle and instead gave a noncommittal grunt. Abruptly changing the subject, Sora asked, "Where are you going, Auron? We should catch up!"

Auron left his gaze drift off of the trio and out into the distance. Where was he going? That was an excellent question, and one he was not sure he could answer. His eye tracked unconsciously along the shoreline of the Styx until it settled on two people approaching: Hercules and Megara.

There was something wrong with Hercules. Auron could sense no energy from him, and the hero's complexion was waxy and pale. Clearly he was still in top physical shape, but there was something eating at his spirit.

"If you need something to do," Auron said, "go help your friends."

Sora, Donald, and Goofy all looked over to Hercules and Megara. In that split second, Auron heard a familiar, insinuating voice.

_Welcome back to the party._

There was a cloud of smoke, a sensation of burning with cold fire, and Auron was standing in front of Hades, Lord of the Dead.

"So nice to see you again, bud," Hades laughed. "I was getting worried that you'd _never_ come back."

Auron tried to drop into a crouch and go for the Kotetsu, but Hades waggled a finger and Auron found himself paralyzed by swirling chains of black smoke. Clearly the god was taking no chances this time.

"What do you want?" Auron demanded. "I've already told you that I won't help you."

Hades grinned, a leer that showed every one of his particularly unpleasant teeth. "See, that's the thing. Before, I was just gonna let you out of the slammer – no strings, like I said. Now, I'm gonna sweeten the deal for you: not only do I let you out, you get to let out anyone _else_ you want!"

That made Auron stop his futile struggling against the bonds of smoke and stare at the Lord of the Dead. "You're serious?"

"Dead serious," Hades replied. "Love that joke, eh?"

"I could have gone my entire life without having to hear it," Auron countered.

"You're no fun. Whaddaya say, then? You fight Hercules in my Underdrome as part of a little event I'm organizing – purely for charity, of course – and you, and anyone else you want to set free, go free. Simple as that, no strings attached, just like last time."

For a long minute Auron turned his thoughts inward. There was no way he could be justified in this. Even if he accepted with the intention of saving Braska and Jecht from the Underworld, there was no guarantee that either of them had ended up here like he had. Furthermore, Hercules's life was not Auron's to take. The man might offer his own life up to save another's, but Auron could never force him.

Still… perhaps there was a way to beat the Lord of the Dead at his own game.

"You have a deal," Auron said impassively. "I fight Hercules in the Underdrome, to the death, and in exchange I can take anyone I want out of the Underworld with me."

Hades's grin impossibly widened and he snapped his fingers. The black smoke constraining Auron dissipated, and in a burst of flame a roll of parchment appeared in the god's hand. "Sign on the dotted line," he said, producing a jagged black quill from thin air.

"On one condition," Auron said.

The grin slipped off of Hades's face. "Be careful, buddy. I'm being real magnanimous, here, letting you pull whoever you so please out of my Underworld. Don't push your luck."

"All I want is to be able to see whether or not the people I have in mind are actually here," Auron said soothingly. "Take me to the river of souls and let me see. I'm not going to accept this deal if there's nobody for me to save."

Hades fumed for a moment, then smoothed back his flame of hair and restored the grin to his face. "Cool, cool. We can deal with this." He scratched the quill across the paper, flames following the point and burning script into the parchment. "There. The condition's added."

With a nod, Auron took the quill from the god and signed the parchment, his distinctive scrawl standing out in comparison to the precise characters of Hades's hand. "I've signed. Take me to the river of souls."

"Just a sec," Hades said, cupping a hand to one of his ears. "Ho-ho, I hear the sound of failure! Jerkules is busy moaning about how his hero days are over – I gotta get _in_ on that." Auron felt his lip begin to curl and stifled the expression. "Here, river of souls. Be with you in a bit."

Another cloud of smoke, another long and unpleasant moment of burning alive, and Auron found himself standing on a rocky precipice hanging in space over a swirling green vortex of screaming, vaguely humanoid figures.

He had no idea how to proceed from this point, but the adage did say that a journey always began with a single step.

"BRASKA! JECHT!" Auron bellowed. "ARE YOU THERE?"

There was no response except a heightening of the pitch of the moaning and screeching that emanated from the pit below. Auron shouted his friends' names again, and again it was to no avail; he tried a third time with the same result…

And this time, something answered.

"Auron!"

A single strand of whatever comprised a soul slithered out of the deluge below and suspended itself in the space between Auron's perch and its prison. "Auron, is that you?" The voice was preternatural, a humming and buzzing sound in Auron's mind that formed words and images.

"Jecht!" Auron called. "You're here!"

"Unfortunately," Jecht's answer came.

"What's the last thing you remember?"

"A whole lot of nothing. From the moment that Braska and I defeated Sin, there's this big hole in my recollection of everything. I never figured this is what the Farplane would be like."

"This isn't the Farplane," Auron said. "I don't know what exactly has happened, Jecht, but Spira as we know it no longer exists. We are in the Underworld, the land of the dead of this universe or something along those lines. Hades, the ruler here, returned me to life so I could kill a rival of his for him. I declined, but then he said I could save anyone I wanted from the Underworld in exchange, so I came to see if you and Braska were here."

"That's not worth it, Auron," Jecht replied fiercely. "Not by a damn sight. I never thought you would kill some random guy just because you were made what was probably a crooked promise that you could save me and Braska."

Auron swallowed. "I have no intention of killing anyone like that," he said. "I would not be able to bring myself to do it. I wish I could save you, but…"

"You're doin' the right thing," Jecht said. "That's what's important, isn't it? Besides, you'd be getting stiffed – ha, bad pun – if you went along with this deal. Braska's not even in here – I have no idea _where_ he is, but if he was here I'd have found him by now."

 _Was he where I emerged from?_ Auron wondered. He hadn't been raised out of this river of souls; perhaps he was in a sub-section because he was a special case. Perhaps it was the same with Braska. However, Auron doubted he could get Hades to agree to let him search the place from whence he'd came; he had already stretched the god's patience and tolerance to the limit.

"He's probably better off than the two of us, wherever he is," Auron finally said. "I will find a way to get you out of here and find Braska, Jecht. I just need a little time."

"Not like I'm in danger of dying again anytime soon," Jecht laughed. "Take all the time you need. Kinda cozy in here, once you get past all the ectoplasm."

Auron nodded and turned about, then began to walk away in the direction of what he believed was the exit. Yes, he needed time… time that he'd probably already wasted. How long _had_ he been gone?

"Things work kinda different in the realm of darkness, if you haven't noticed," a drawling voice came from behind him. Auron whirled, the Kotetsu free and cresting in an arc that would easily take the attacker's head off –

It never reached its target. The black-robed figure jerked a hand up, holding something that looked vaguely like a large, purple, crystalline handgun, and fired a scarlet energy burst that stopped Auron's swing dead in the water and sent him staggering back.

"Manners," the man drawled again. "You shouldn't go around choppin' people's heads off like that." Auron stared into the single venomous eye that regarded him from a scarred and angry face; the other eye was covered in a black eyepatch. Grey-streaked black hair was pulled back into a ponytail on the man's head and he wore a wide, predatory grin.

"Yo," he said.

"Who are you?" Auron demanded.

"Name's Xigbar," the man replied. "Number Two of Organization XIII, Xigbar the Freeshooter."

"Are you intent on coming after me as well?"

Xigbar shrugged, holding his weapons loosely in his hands. "That all depends. Right now you got business with that Hades guy, and I'm not about to mess with him on his own turf – that would be real unwise. Consider this an extension of your existence, why not."

"Don't make idle threats," Auron warned the man. "If you want a fight, I'll give one to you."

"I highly doubt you could beat me solo, man," Xigbar laughed. "No offense or anything, but you're not really up to my specs. I bet even that chicken Demyx could handle you… if he wasn't dead, of course."

Auron stared at Xigbar. "Dead? When?"

"A while ago. Like I said, the realm of darkness works kinda different than the world you 'n I are used to. The only way to keep things in order there is to stay awake, to keep your sense of time. Seein' as how you seem to have no idea as to exactly how long you been gone, I'd say you were knocked out or somethin' and time just flew for you."

As strange as the explanation was, it made sense to Auron. A subjective realm like the realm of darkness was probably as much victim to his own perception as he was to its vast, unbreachable nature. Axel might have only knocked him out for a few minutes to an hour, but in that lost time…

"I'd talk more," Xigbar interrupted Auron's thoughts, "but I think your new boss is incoming. Ciao." Before Auron could say anything, the man disappeared into another swirling black vortex that dissipated a moment later.

Just as Xigbar had predicted, a column of smoke blossomed in front of Auron and Hades emerged, looking triumphant. "Auron. Just got finished luring the kids into the Hades Cup. Gonna have to enter you, too."

"Forget it," Auron said.

One of Hades's eyes began to twitch. "Um. No. I don't _think_ so. You signed a contract." He flared up, turning red, flames cascading towards the ceiling. "A CONTRACT!"

"I'm not going to fight Hercules for you," Auron told Hades. "I merely wanted to see if there was anyone I knew in your Underworld. Now that I know there isn't –" Jecht's identity, after all, had to remain unknown to Hades – "I can leave."

Abruptly, the firestorm ceased. Hades returned to his normal color and he grinned maliciously. "Auron, pal.

"You ever heard of a _binding contract_?"

There was a flash of red light, a hole opened in Auron's heart, and everything went blank –

* * *

– and suddenly Auron found himself in the Underdrome.

He looked down at Hercules, who was crouched on the very edge of the center platform, struggling to keep the Kotetsu from splitting his face in two. Looking around, Auron saw Hades staring down at them from a throne set above the ring, and on the other side of the ring stood Sora, Donald, and Goofy.

Images came rushing back to Auron: a statue of him, that crooked deal, not remembering who anyone was, being forced to call that obsequious bastard sitting up there "Lord…"

There was going to be hell to pay, and the locale would only make that easier.

"Sora," Auron said, returning the Kotetsu to his shoulder and turning to face the Keyblade wielder. "Donald. Goofy."

"Auron!" they shouted, their faces bright with relief.

Auron heard an exploding sound behind him and knew that Hades had turned scarlet. "Why, those _little_ – ugh. Prisoner!" the god shouted. "What happened to our mutual agreement? I can give you a clean slate, but you gotta work with me."

Letting a snarl take over his features, Auron turned to look at the god and leveled the Kotetsu at him. "Maybe you didn't hear me. This is my story, and you're not part of it."

Hades gave an awful screech and burst into a column of flame, disappearing off of his throne and reappearing in the ring. "That's it!" he roared. "This is game over. I've played by the rules so far. Okay, I confess! I was hoping Wonderboy would lose, but it was still a fair fight. C'mon, is that really so wrong? Huh?"

"Really?" Sora scoffed. "A fair fight?" His companions both laughed at the idea.

"Laugh, laugh, laugh all you want!" Hades snarled, giving an extremely forced chuckle. "Because the laughing is about to stop. Wanna know why? Because now we're gonna play by _my_ rules."

The Lord of the Dead snapped his fingers, and a stone gate in the wall of the Underdrome ground open behind him, revealing the river of souls screaming past it. Auron heard a scream, and a moment later a puff of smoke appeared in front of the open gate and Megara was no longer in the stands.

"Meg!" Hercules shouted.

"Hercules!" The woman struggled against the smoke suspending her off of the ground, but it was useless; slowly, inexorably, she drifted out over the river of souls.

Hades grinned. "Hey, I warned you right at the get-go. You don't compete, you lose the girl." He snapped his fingers again and Megara plummeted.

"NO!" Hercules shouted desperately. He jumped the gap to the outer wall of the Underdrome, ran past Hades, and then dove after Megara into the river of death.

The Lord of the Dead languidly peeked over the side and laughed. "Looks like Wonderboy has dropped out of the standings." The stone gate ground shut behind him and he turned to look at Auron.

"Well, you've still got us to deal with!" Sora said, brandishing his Keyblade.

Hades disappeared into his trademark cloud of smoke and reappeared behind them.

"Oh, yeah. This is gonna be good." The god flared up red and a massive fireball appeared in each of his hands. "THAT'S IT!"

Auron ducked beneath the initial fireball and battered the second one off of its course with him, then charged and cut Hades cleanly through the chest.

The strike didn't do anything. Hades looked down at the smoking gash in his chest, laughed, and hit Auron so hard that the guardian saw stars. He staggered backwards, braced himself up on the Kotetsu, and watched a volley of Sora's attacks reflect harmlessly off of Hades or do no damage if they connected. The god laughed and backhanded Sora across the face, sending the Keyblade wielder flying.

Sora definitely had grown in power, however. He performed a dazzling midair recovery and scythed back at Hades, Keyblade flashing, but his attacks were useless again. A moment later he took a fireball in the chest and went down.

"We can't win!" Sora finally gasped, getting to his feet.

"How come?" Donald demanded, standing at a wary distance from Hades, staff at the ready.

Auron didn't like to state the obvious, but with this group he couldn't expect anyone else to take up the burden of being the fool. "Because it's his Underworld."

"Gee," Goofy said, "then how do we beat him?"

Truthfully, Auron didn't know. He'd fought losing battles before, but this was beyond anything in his experience. An enemy completely invulnerable to all conventional attacks, with the powers of a god…

His battlefield thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a stone gate grinding open. Auron whirled, as did everyone else, to see a golden light emanating from the gate to the river of souls.

Standing there, framed in his own golden glow, was Hercules, with Megara in his arms.

"I think a true hero should be able to help," he said, grinning.

Hades stared, slackjawed. "But… you…"

Hercules laughed. "I owe you one, Hades. I didn't hesitate to give my life for Meg's. And then, I remembered…" Auron heard the sound of flapping wings a moment before Pegasus descended and landed next to his master. Hercules gently lowered Megara to the ground and continued, "A true hero is measured by the strength of his heart. I'll never forget that again."

"Just no more crazy stunts!" Sora said only half-seriously.

"People always do crazy things when they're in love," Hercules replied sagely. Pegasus took flight with Megara on his back, bearing her safely away.

The horse's timing, as it turned out, was perfect. Hades literally exploded. He flared up brighter than the sun and screamed, "What is so FUNNY, you imbeciles? How DARE you get a happy ending! HOW _DARE_ YOU!"

Auron sincerely hoped that Hercules had some trick up his sleeve for dealing with the angry god, or this was going to end up the most disastrous and most certainly the last fight of his life.

Fortunately enough, Hercules was indeed prepared. He gave a shout, radiating energy, and large, shimmering golden orbs appeared in a slow orbit around him. Hades snarled and began to hurl fireballs again, but Sora sidestepped one, slid over to one of the golden orbs, and smacked it across the side straight at Hades.

The orb hit the god and exploded in a burst of white light. Hades gave an inarticulate yell and staggered backwards, his flames dying down to their normal simmering blue. He clawed at himself, trying to shed Hercules's light energy that still clung to him, and Auron sensed vulnerability like a dog sensed fear.

He struck, going in at full speed, the Kotetsu sweeping about in an all-or-nothing attack that would send Hades flying or leave Auron completely open if it missed. Sora was right behind him, Keyblade at the ready. The air around Hades had already begun to crackle with lightning – Donald's doing – and Goofy had hurled his shield, which had hit the god square in the stomach and doubled him over.

Auron's attack connected beautifully, slashing a smoking diagonal gash from Hades's shoulder to his thigh. Sora's thrust pierced through the Lord of the Dead's chest, the Keyblade exploding out his back wreathed in flame. Behind him, Auron felt a rush of energy that precipitated Hercules's attack by a bare instant, and then the hero's fist landed square in the center of Hades's face.

Hades recoiled, flame spurting from his mangled torso, and disappeared into another column of smoke, reappearing at the other end of the arena. He roared something and flame spurted from the ends of his hands, then a pillar of fire leapt up around him, dying down to reveal that he had turned red again and his wounds were gone.

It was just in time for him to take another golden orb square in the chest. He staggered again, teetering at the edge of the arena. Auron gathered himself into a crouch and then took a mighty leap, crossing the distance in a single bound and bringing the Kotetsu down across Hades's head.

More smoke, another teleportation; Sora was waiting and greeted Hades with a furious barrage of light strikes before visibly channeling his magic energy and releasing it in a concentric explosion of light around him. Hades retreated right into a blizzard storm from Donald's staff. Another teleportation led him into a one-two from Goofy and Hercules, a paired punch and shield bash that sent the god reeling.

Bent, clutching at his heart, Hades stared at all of them hatefully. "This… isn't… happening!"

By way of reply, Sora dashed forward, bringing the Keyblade around for another overhead strike, but his weapon hit nothing but smoke; Hades had retreated out of the arena to the outer wall of the Underdrome. Behind him was the open stone gate, beyond which loomed the river of souls.

"It's… not over… yet…" he gasped, backing blindly away from his foes. He stopped at the edge, almost fell, steadied himself.

In that crucial moment, Auron saw, with perfect clarity, Jecht's face: more than an illusion but less than real, it hovered just behind Hades, almost completely concealed by the god's black robe. Auron met Jecht's gaze and saw his old friend give a ghostly wink.

A moment later Hades screamed, teetered backwards, and fell. A wisp of what might have been one of Jecht's ethereal arms sloughed off of the rock of the Underdrome and back into the river of souls.

It was Hades's Underworld no longer.


	5. Chapter 5

The Underdrome was far off in the distance, across the black expanse of the Styx, before anyone finally spoke.

"What'cha gonna do now?" Donald asked Auron. What little Auron could read of the duck's rather garbled tone indicated concern.

His thoughts wandered back to Jecht, trapped in the river of souls, no doubt dealing with Hades, and to Braska, who was mysteriously absent from the Underworld but could not be anything but dead.

"I lived my life defending others," Auron said. "But now… there's no one left to protect. Maybe… it's time I shaped my own story."

Jecht. Braska. Auron would find them both.

"Yeah," Sora agreed. "You deserve it, Auron – after everything you've been through."

The boy's sheer earnestness elicited a chuckle from Auron. "I suppose I should thank you."

"Not at all," Sora said proudly, interlacing his fingers behind his head.

"Fine," Auron replied, turning to leave.

He heard the three of them slump in disappointment before Sora sheepishly cleared his throat. "I mean, sure, you could thank us a _little_ …"

"You should say what you mean," Auron chided him. He about-faced and regarded the trio amusedly. "…I guess I could spare a few words." Their faces lit up and they stared at him expectantly. Auron opened his mouth to thank them for being his guardians… No. They had a long way to go before they could call themselves guardians of anyone.

So he settled on, "Thanks for meddling."

Sora, Donald, and Goofy slumped again. "Hey, what's that mean?" Sora demanded.

Auron turned and walked away, a smirk on his face. Let them figure it out; he had his own story to tell now.

* * *

His path took him through the caverns of the Underworld to the huge chamber just before Hades's personal lair. The cave was effused with the sickly green glow of the river of souls beneath, and if Auron looked hard enough…

There. Hades was barely afloat in the midst of the phantasmagoric flotsam. His normal crown of blue flame was absent and he was struggling to keep his head above what passed for water. His task was doubly difficult because Jecht had anchored himself to the god, a malicious grin on his face.

"Auron!" Jecht called. "We got us a keeper down here!"

"When I get out of here, buddy, you're gonna be in for an Underworld of hurt," Hades shouted at Auron. "Your pal here, too. It's not gonna be pretty!"

"I think not," Auron replied. "Let's cut to the chase."

Hades stared at him, an eyebrow raised, and Jecht looked at Auron oddly as well. Auron gave Jecht a knowing smirk. The mode of speech was unfamiliar to him, but the words were burned into his memory.

"Here's the deal I'm gonna offer you," Auron said to Hades, the irony of the situation tasting sweet. "I let you out of the slammer – no strings – you'll be free as a bird."

"Oh, this is great," Hades snarled. "Laugh it up, laugh it up." The sarcasm was just a façade, however – Auron could see that much easily. Even through his anger, the god's eyes had lit up at the prospect of freedom.

"And all for one little job," Auron continued. "Swear on your post as Lord of the Dead that you'll do no harm to me or any of my allies, for one. For two…" His eye burned. "Well. Your information dump when you first brought me back has been quite useful, I should mention. I recall something vague, something about… the Sisters of Fate."

"No way," Hades swore. "You have any idea what those crazy birds would do if I told you how to get to them?"

"Could it be," Auron asked, "any worse than your current situation, Hades?"

That gave the god pause, and he floated motionless for a long moment, the gears in his head transparently turning. His gaze darted from Auron, to the river of souls he never thought he would end up in, to the impossibly out-of-reach entrance to his personal lair…

"All right," Hades agreed. "No more harm to you, or to anyone who you're buds with. That's cool. And, once you get me out of here, I'll tell you how to get to the Sisters of Fate. I know you don't trust me, but I promise you that."

"Deal. Jecht, if you would?"

Jecht gave a savage laugh. "My pleasure, Auron. Buddy, you better brace yourself. I never practiced this on anything bigger than a blitzball before."

A look of confusion on his face, Hades wrenched himself around in the river of souls to look at Jecht, who had disengaged himself from the god. "What're you… WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"

Gathering all his years of blitzball skill, Jecht performed a flawless water-surface jump and soared ten feet out of the river of souls. He began to spin wildly on his axis in the air, laughing. "Get ready… for the SUBLIMELY MAGNIFICENT JECHT SHOT MARK THREE!"

He hit the river of souls like a descending drill, shooting down into it without any loss of momentum or the centripetal force he'd gathered, and delivered a flawlessly aimed kick to Hades's gut.

Ethereal and bodiless though Jecht was, Hades was nothing if not an amalgamation of pure flame and power, so he took it like a jackhammer to the stomach. Flame poured out his nostrils, ears, and mouth in a ghastly echo of a gasp, and he soared out of the river of souls in a wonderful parabolic arc that ended with him smashing hard into the side of one of the rock platforms suspended above the flow beneath.

Auron casually bent over the side and grabbed Hades's hand, hauling the god up onto land. "Welcome back to the land of the living," he said.

The Lord of the Dead stared at him for what seemed like a very long time, then blew out a bereaved breath and started stalking towards his lair. "Dumb joke."

* * *

"So we're cool," Hades said. "No hard feelings."

Auron looked with a half-smirk at the god sitting in his throne, clearly relieved to be back in the seat of his power. "That depends. Tell me how to reach the Sisters of Fate."

Running a hand down his brow, Hades leaned back in his throne and peeked out at Auron from between his index and middle fingers. "You know all about 'em, huh? I shouldn't have given you so much info to deal with."

"I know that they control the threads of our fate," Auron replied. "Their power affects everyone, even those of us who are not native to this universe. They know the flow of time and can deal out life or death as necessary. They can also give or take power… and I need a certain kind of power in order to accomplish my goal."

Hades gave a noncommittal _hmm_. "You pretty much nailed it on the head there. Clotho the Spinner, Lakesis the Allotter, Atropos the Undoer. They live underneath the Underworld, y'know, to get away from it all."

"Continue."

"Clotho's the one who spins the thread of life from her distaff onto the spindle of fate. Lakesis has the measuring rod, and she measures the thread to figure how long a person's life is going to be. Atropos is the one with the shears, and when it's time for you to die she'll be the one to cut your thread."

Auron nodded. "And they can apportion me the power I want."

"Sure, why not? They're the ones who chose for me and those snobs up on Olympus to be born as gods, after all – I'm sure they could make you superhuman or something like that."

Auron curled his lip. "I have no desire to be superhuman. What I need to be able to do is search for my friend Braska, and I have no way to go about that in this new universe with its many worlds. I think the Fates can help me there."

"Well, if you're really determined, fine, here." Hades rose from his throne and snapped his fingers. The throne disappeared, solid stone vanishing into thin air, and where it had once been was a hole in the floor. Darkness oozed out of it and Auron eyed it, somewhat unnerved. "They're right down there. Knowing them, they're probably waiting for you, too."

Steeling himself, Auron moved to the edge of the hole and stared into the blackness. "I take it I'll survive the fall."

"Up to them," Hades replied. "I can't make any guarantees. Might be a four-foot drop, might be four hundred. All depends on whether they want to see you or not."

Auron nodded. It truly was up to fate, then… in the most literal sense.

As he was about to step in and let himself fall, Hades stepped in front of him. "Whoa, whoa, whoa. Before you go. Seriously. No hard feelings, right? I kinda have to bank on the whole idea that you and your friends won't take advantage of the fact that I can't lift a finger against you anymore."

"Do I strike you as a particularly untrustworthy man, Hades?" Auron asked.

"No, no! I'm just saying…"

"Am I an honest man?"

"Of course! I…"

"You say of course even when I tried to renege on the contract I made with you to kill Hercules? Even when I only accepted that deal so I could see if my friends were in your Underworld?"

"Well…"

"The fact of the matter is, Hades, that I am not an honest man," Auron said. "There is no such thing as an honest man. Everyone lies, everyone has secrets. If you ask a man if he's honest and he replies yes, he's lying. In the end, everyone is a liar. The only defense is to keep a bulwark of honesty about yourself and to do the best you can, because truth is the sole antidote for falsehood. Do this and others will reciprocate – misery loves company, but fraternity loves it more."

Hades started to say something, closed his mouth, opened it again, then thought the better of the whole affair and stood aside, mute.

Without even a parting glance, Auron stepped forward and plummeted into blackness.

* * *

The plummet lasted for all of a second. Auron landed in something soft and elastic that cushioned his fall. When he tried to get up, however, he found he was stuck to it. It was pitch black, and Auron could see absolutely nothing, so he wrestled his arm free from whatever was restraining it and used his meager magical knowledge to conjure a small, flickering flame in his palm.

He found, much to his distaste, that he was caught in a giant spiderweb. He was in a huge cavern that sloped sharply down at the opposite end, leading to places unknown, and it was rife with massive cobwebs. More than half of them were decorated in a most macabre fashion with human remains, long rotted to dry bone.

Giant spiders Auron was familiar with, but giant spiders that spun webs and then didn't eat what was caught? This was a new concept. Wrestling the Kotetsu from his back was difficult in the position he was in, but he managed it, quickly cutting himself loose. The sticky webbing parted before the force of his blade and hung limply from his coat.

A good deal of his attention was devoted to keeping the flame in front of him manifested, but Auron decided it was worth the risk of distraction to not have to proceed blind. He started off towards the other end of the cave, stepping over the bones of the forgotten. Did their souls now rest in the Underworld above?

The sloping cavern shrank to a tunnel that Auron followed down for what felt like miles. He wondered how long he had been walking and found himself vividly reminded of what Xigbar had told him. The realm of darkness, perfect subjectivity… Auron considered the possibility that he had passed out of normal reality into a subjective realm as well. It would make sense, since Hades had said Auron would survive the fall only if the Fates wanted to see him.

Of course, assuming that this was a subjective realm in the sense that desires or commands shaped it, Auron could have simply wished himself free from the spiderweb. He'd certainly wanted it badly enough. If this place was manipulable in such a sense, it was only by the Sisters of Fate. Auron had no more power here than anywhere else.

"We have been waiting for you, Auron."

Auron started and looked around for the source of the shrill female voices; he was definitely alone in the seemingly endless tunnel. "Who are you?"

"We are the Moirae," the three voices said as one, "also known as the Sisters of Fate. You seek us out, Auron?"

"You should know."

"Do not be impertinent. You are lucky that we have allowed you to get this far, little warrior. We could have easily spun the web that caught you elsewhere."

"Then I do seek you out," Auron said. "I wish an audience with you."

"Continue along the path we have placed before you. Assuming you are strong enough to defeat our guardian, you will reach us."

"Guardian?" Auron demanded. "What guardian?" Silence was the only answer, and he frowned. He had come too far to fail; whatever guardian there was would merely have to be dealt with. Decided, he began to walk again.

And he walked.

And he walked.

And he walked…

There was still no end in sight, and he had been walking for what felt like an age, though he was sure it could not have been more than an hour. Auron stopped a moment, a fragment of memory flashing past.

_It's all in the interpretation…_

The Sisters had told him to continue along the path they had placed before him. It was a riddle, another trick. This tunnel might never end, and Auron was certainly not inclined to try to see how far it really went. If he interpreted the "path they had placed" to not be this tunnel, but instead his fate, the path of his life and the flow of his story that the Moirae had determined…

Turning, Auron looked back at the way from whence he'd come. There was the cavern exit that had led him here, not more than ten paces away. He'd made no progress at all.

What did they expect him to do now? Or, rather, what had they decided that he was going to do? All the tenets that Auron held faith in were being thrown out the window in trying to deal with these Sisters. What could they have set for him to do?

The answer came to him. Subjectivity. If this world only bent according to the path of Fate, Auron would simply have to take control of his own. And he knew precisely how.

"Enough," he said. "You've toyed with me long enough. This is _my_ story, and I'm seeking you out. Reveal yourselves to me, _now_."

Everything came apart. The world rained down in pieces around Auron and he was left in an expanse, not light or dark or real at all. He pushed, shoving his story in the right direction, in the direction of the Sisters.

He was back in the cavern, but this time it did not slope downward at the far end. Instead there was a door of black stone, a door that seemed to suck up all light that reached it. In front of the door, on eight spindly legs, stood the most massive spider he had ever seen.

"Well done, Auron," she said, four pairs of eyes flashing at him. The light from Auron's flame skittered over her enormous black exoskeleton as she walked forward on her six hind legs, each a good twenty feet long, half-staggering, half-galloping. Auron stood and watched the giant arachnid's locomotion with a detached sort of interest, not failing to note the blood-red hourglass on the underbelly of the beast. Mandible-like chelicerae that were as big as his head spread in a rude approximation of a grin. "Brilliantly performed."

The spider ground to a halt in front of Auron and looked him over. It was at least five times bigger than he was, and in one of its forelegs it grasped a silver rod of about seven feet.

"Lakesis," Auron said.

"Hades informed you well," she hissed. "For an outsider, you are knowledgeable."

"I was not expecting you to be this sort of creature," Auron said. "He never told me anything of your form."

"We do not have a form," Lakesis said. "This is merely how you perceive us. If you saw us differently, it would not have been a spiderweb that broke your fall. I am the widow, apportioner of lifespan. I decide at what point your life will end. The mate comes and whether or not he dies is entirely in my hands."

"But it's your sister Atropos that kills him," Auron pointed out.

The chelicerae spread in that faux-grin again. "Do not be so quick to label me harmless, warrior. I have a bite."

"Of course. Before we go, please answer me one question."

Something flashed through Lakesis's eyes, but she hunched slightly for a moment in what Auron interpreted to be a nod. "Proceed."

"This is my story," Auron said, "and I took command of it as my fate. Was it by your design that I did that? Can you weave my thread so that I take control of it by my own free will when it is not of my free will at all?"

"I will answer your question with another question: are you a protector of others because you feel it is your destiny, or because you feel it is the right thing to do?"

"The latter."

"Then how is it that you know we did not arrange for you to see it as the proper thing to do?"

Auron stopped and considered that. "I make the decision myself, but the motivations behind it are structured by your design."

"Life its own self," Lakesis hissed with a dry after-stridulation that Auron assumed to be a cackle. "And now I think our guardian is overdue. I will see you soon, Auron… or perhaps not."

"Wait!" Auron tried, but it was useless; Lakesis's giant form was suddenly swallowed up by the door, encased in blackness and shrunk or perhaps the door grew – at any rate, she was gone.

The cavern was suddenly filled with an omnipresent light source, and Auron terminated his flame. Another kind of blackness materialized in front of the door: one of the all-too-familiar portals to the realm of darkness. Xigbar stepped out of it, a grin on his face.

"You crazy bastard," he laughed. "You're gonna go to the Sisters of Fate? What for?" He stretched and then brandished his weapons at Auron. "See, us Nobodies don't really exist per se, so guess what? No threads. You couldn't affect us through the Sisters no matter how hard you tried."

"A good thing, then, that I'm not after anybody's thread but my own," Auron said, readying the Kotetsu and dropping into a combat stance. "Get out of my way or I'll be forced to kill you."

Xigbar stared at Auron and then doubled over, laughing uproariously. For a split second, Auron frowned, confused, and relaxed the tiniest bit.

In that split second, Xigbar moved. He was no longer where he had been. Space rippled and he was standing behind Auron, one of his weapons a bare inch from the back of the guardian's head. "Stupid," he said, his voice no longer pleasant. "You, kill me?

"Try it."


	6. Chapter 6

The one thought that was flashing over and over through Auron's mind was that Xigbar had his back –

Auron dropped, kicking his own legs out from under him, plummeting and slashing in a wild backhand with the Kotetsu at the same time. There was a rush of air, a crackling sound and a loud humming –

The ground was solid rock and Auron's landing knocked the wind out of him, but he saw the shard of coherent light that Xigbar had fired shoot through the space where his head had been a moment before. He still wasn't out of danger, though, not by a long shot, and he threw himself into a sideways roll –

More sounds of breaking glass –

Rock exploded and Auron felt hot fragments of it scatter off of his coat –

A biting pain exploded in his shoulder and Auron came to a halt with an explosive gasp, resisting the urge to curl up and instead catapulting himself to his feet. What he had thought to be coherent light was instead some kind of crystalline shard of red energy made solid, and it had buried itself in his shoulder. Even as he looked at it, it began to dissipate.

"Don't think you can compare yourself to me," Xigbar laughed, his twin weapons still leveled at Auron. "You thought you could kill me? I'm Number Two of Organization XIII – Xigbar, the Freeshooter! You don't have a snowball's chance in hell!"

"Talk is cheap," Auron replied, taking a moment to probe his shoulder. The wound wasn't serious; a small puncture, bleeding but little. "I would worry about my own chances."

Xigbar's grin faltered and then he looked down at his chest. Darkness streamed out of a gash across his upper body that Auron had given him with the Kotetsu when he was dodging.

"You're gonna pay for this scratch, bud," he finally said. "And my price is real steep."

Then he was gone, space rippling again – Auron could feel the pull, something undefined in his bones or being – and Auron reacted on instinct, pulling the Kotetsu up and around to batter away three of the gun-arrows Xigbar had fired from a position completely opposite to the one he had just been in.

This was Xigbar's power – that much, Auron was sure of. The Nobody could bend space, repositioning himself in it according to his will. Even as Auron whirled to get him back in sight, he saw that Xigbar was not resting on the ground. His opponent was hanging upside-down in midair, defying gravity, and his weapons were spitting a deadly stream of red crystalline bolts.

Auron dove out of the way, coming up running, only to find that Xigbar was gone again. He felt the pull, but this time it was in two different directions, and in different proportions. Before Auron could try to fathom what this new development meant, he heard Xigbar's grunt of satisfaction to his left, followed a moment later by the sensation of a dozen gun-arrows spearing into his back.

He staggered but remained upright, feeling the projectiles begin to dissipate just like the last ones. That was what the different pulls had meant – Xigbar had displaced himself _and his projectiles_. Auron reassessed the Nobody's threat level: he could strike from any angle and redirect any given strike to any other angle, instantly, with apparently perfect accuracy.

Given all this, Auron wasn't sure he could win.

Pulling himself around again, Auron was just in time to see Xigbar discharge empty clips from the weapons and begin loading new ones in from his sleeves with nothing but flicks of his wrists. There was the possibility that Xigbar might run out of ammo, but Auron doubted that; with control over space, the Nobody could be carrying thousands of clips in both sleeves without any encumbrance. He would have to strike again.

Auron crossed the distance between them in two bounds, the Kotetsu bearing down on Xigbar, who leveled one of his weapons at the incoming sword and the other at its wielder, then fired. Auron's strike was blown off-target and he took three more gun-arrows in the side as he peeled off, going low and into a spin just behind and to the side of Xigbar for a recovery strike. His momentum built up, Auron whirled about and the Kotetsu hit empty air just as he felt the pull again.

The Nobody was to his right, he knew that instinctively, he was beginning to learn to read the pulls in space –

He dropped flat, gun-arrows shooting over him, felt another pull that seemed to be centered just below his sternum, snapped the Kotetsu above him just in time to block the red bolts that seemed to blink out of emptiness above him –

This was good, Auron thought as he heaved himself to his feet and batted away more gun-arrows. Xigbar's power over space was formidable, but he was learning to read it. Too, he had been keeping a rough count of how many bolts each clip of ammunition held, and he was betting on a reload –

There. The empty clips thudded to the ground, Xigbar flicked his wrists, Auron was inside his guard with the Kotetsu and the weapons weren't loaded –

There was a major pull, and Xigbar was suddenly and impossibly far away. Neither he nor Auron had moved, but the Kotetsu swept through empty air, bouncing off the rock floor, and Auron stumbled forward, having been unprepared to halt his own momentum. It was almost as if the distance between himself and Xigbar had stretched.

Belatedly, Auron understood that the Nobody's control over space was not limited to objects within it – he could control space itself and distort it. In a subjective world like this, it would only be easier for him to do so. The pull reversed its polarity and Xigbar was back, less than a foot from Auron, and he unloaded a full salvo from both his weapons.

Auron had gotten the Kotetsu up in front of him, but several of the gun-arrows still got past his guard and threw him back. Staggering, he still managed to throw himself out of the way of more of the projectiles as they disappeared from one trajectory and reappeared right behind where he'd been standing.

"You're good," Xigbar said from Auron's right. A pull, and his voice now came from Auron's left. "You can read my moves if I just let space-time choreograph 'em like that. But what if I do _this_?"

Suddenly, Auron felt pulls from every direction. Xigbar had changed tactics; he was covering his own movements and the movements of his gun-arrows in random empty displacements, moving bits of space that had nothing in them just to throw Auron off. Reading the Nobody's moves was impossible, and Auron felt pain stitch itself up his arm at the same time as it crawled down his back and left thigh. Three simultaneous hits from different directions and he hadn't been able to feel any of them coming. He would have to keep Xigbar in sight, but at the same time he would need to watch his back for attacks from behind… it was impossible.

There were literally no two ways about it: Auron could not win. An enemy that had superior mobility, could attack from all sides at once, and was nigh impossible to land a blow on was beyond him. If only he had backup…

Another surge of pulls and all Auron could see was red. For a split second he thought he was dying, then he realized that would come next: the red glow came from a gun-arrow about to spear him right through his good eye.

Pain blossomed up and down his side, but the red glow was suddenly gone and his eye was intact. There was the sound of someone landing heavily and Auron heard Xigbar's exclamation of "What the hell?" He looked at the person who had deflected the gun-arrow away from his face and started.

It was himself.

"Don't stand there!" the other Auron barked. "Move!"

Auron snapped out of it and whirled to face Xigbar. "Get my back," he said to himself.

"Will do."

Xigbar stared, openmouthed, from where he hung partially upside-down in the air. "How the… impossible! How're there two of you?"

"No idea," Auron replied, and charged. Xigbar snapped out of it and simultaneously fired off a multitude of random space displacements and a volley, half of the gun-arrows disappearing in mid-flight, their pull covered by all the other meaningless ones. Behind him, Auron heard himself grunt and the sound of shattering glass as he smashed the incoming bolts, while Auron batted away the bolts coming at him from the front and charged even faster. Xigbar disappeared, fatally forgetting to cover his displacement with a blanket of cover pulls, and without looking Auron swung about and hurled the Kotetsu.

It shot through the air too fast for even Xigbar to dodge; it speared him straight through the abdomen and stuck him fast to one of the cavern walls. He gasped and the wall against his back stretched and retreated, freeing him; the Kotetsu slipped to the ground from his torso as he rotated on his axis in midair.

"Kill you!" he roared, weapons spitting red flame that leaped forward impossibly fast, the space around the projectiles compressing and then expanding in a terrifyingly swift and physics-denying boomerang effect.

"Switch!" the other Auron shouted. Auron sidestepped behind himself and they both charged. The Auron in the lead swatted the majority of the gun-arrows away, taking one or two in the chest, as the two of them shot through wave after wave of compressing and expanding space, feeling the intense pull on themselves.

The moment before they reached Xigbar, the other Auron cried, "Down!"

Auron dropped instinctively, automatically going for the Kotetsu, which lay on the ground beneath the madly firing and reloading Xigbar. There were two simultaneous pulls again: Xigbar disappeared and the wall that had been so far away loomed back in front of them, far too close for the other Auron to stop before he hit it.

Xigbar appeared upside-down in the air behind and above them, weapons leveled –

Auron grabbed the Kotetsu and rolled, trying to distribute his impact against the wall evenly along his body –

Smoothly and impossibly quickly, as if he had known it was coming, the other Auron leaped and twisted as the wall shot forward from twenty feet away to four. His feet hit the wall even as it settled into its place in space and he ran up the wall, leaped off –

Xigbar was too slow; he tried to shift his aim even as he opened fire, the gun-arrows tracking uselessly through thin air and smashing into the wall –

The other Auron completed a full mid-air somersault off of the wall and brought his Kotetsu down and across Xigbar's body. Darkness exploded out of the huge gash, combining with the black oozing out of the slash Auron had landed at the start of the fight and the hole in Xigbar's gut. The Nobody opened his mouth in a wordless scream, then flew backwards out of his weightless perch as Auron, finally having gotten back up, swept the broad side of the Kotetsu across the Freeshooter's face.

Xigbar tumbled to the ground and rolled roughly across the stone floor of the cavern, coming to a halt some distance away. Auron shifted into a defensive stance, ready for the wounded Nobody to lash out…

The attack never came. Impossibly, Xigbar regained his feet, arms drawn across his torso, nose crushed. He glared venomously at Auron. "Two of you… how the… two…"

"Don't ask me to explain, because I don't know," Auron said; the other remained silent. He leveled the Kotetsu at Xigbar. "It's up to you to decide whether you're staying or going."

Xigbar grinned, but it was a hollow, bitter expression. "Oh, I'm goin', all right. Just remember this, Auron. You can't take me alone. You can't take any of us alone. Next time you challenge one of us, you _will_ die – or worse."

"Try it," Auron said.

The Nobody snorted and the blackness of a portal engulfed him, then vanished. Xigbar was gone.

* * *

"An explanation would be good," Auron said to his double.

"The Fates control time, obviously," the other Auron replied. "When you go through that door, ask them to send you back to the proper time to save yourself. Then just do as I did."

"That's how you knew the wall was coming."

"Yes."

"And why is it that the Fates are willing to help? I thought all they were willing to do was grant me an audience."

"Ask them yourself."

Auron nodded. "Very well, then." He turned and headed to the black door, leaving his double behind.

* * *

The door admitted him with no issue. On the other side, Auron found himself in a cavern that seemed to stretch on into the distance and above him infinitely… and it was filled with billions of golden threads of silk, all of them woven into a massive spider's web.

"Welcome to Destiny's Grotto," Lakesis hissed from somewhere above Auron. "I see you got past our guardian."

"Xigbar, your guardian?" Auron asked bemusedly. "He said that Nobodies have no threads here because they do not exist. How could you make him be your guardian?"

"We didn't make him do anything," Lakesis replied, and now Auron could see her, descending from the endless golden web above on a strand of her own silvery silk. "He simply reasoned out where you had gone and then he decided that it was best if he try to prevent your reaching us."

"Though I would not call it coincidence, precisely," a new voice said. Auron turned to see a much smaller spider, perhaps only twice as big as he was, approach. This one was a much different specimen than the black and deadly Lakesis; the arachnid's body was elongated and thin, with a sort of hump rising on its back where the abdomen began. She was furred, with much smaller and less protruding chelicerae than Lakesis's, and her legs were extremely long in proportion to her body; at twenty feet long, they were not longer than Lakesis's own, but on the vastly smaller spider their effect was greatly enhanced. At the very tip of one of her forelegs, she gripped a wooden distaff, around which were wrapped many rolls of the golden silk threads. How the spider transferred the threads from her spinneret to the distaff, Auron couldn't say.

"Clotho, I presume," he said.

"The Spinner," she confirmed. "You have done well to make it this far, Auron. We know of great things in your future, and we will see to it that you achieve them – but there is pressing business at hand first."

"Yes, before we continue we must make sure I've no cause to cut your thread early." Another newcomer; this one did not spindle herself down, but instead leaped from thick thread to thick thread, finally landing silently behind Auron. She was between Clotho's and Lakesis's sizes, and purely jet-black. Her armored head was quite prominent, as were her eyes and chelicerae, and her legs also bore armor and splayed out about her like thick, fat fingers. Her abdomen was unarmored and furred, squat and flat and not much larger than her head, which was still of considerable size. Between her furry forelegs, she gripped a long, wicked-looking pair of shears.

"Atropos," Auron greeted her.

"Behold, Auron," Lakesis said. She extended the foreleg that held her rod, and Auron could see, set into a groove in the rod that he had not seen the first time, a single, shimmering thread.

"Mine, I trust," he observed. "Please send me back to the proper time to save myself."

Lakesis's other foreleg came around and, with infinite delicacy and mechanical precision, twitched the thread within the groove the tiniest bit.

Auron felt a pull and then a push from all directions and then it was over. "It is done?"

"Go and save yourself," Lakesis said by way of reply.

* * *

The moment Auron walked out of the door, Kotetsu at the ready, he could see that the Sisters had cut it very fine indeed.

He felt a surge of covering pulls in space and saw himself standing in a futile ready stance as Xigbar fired at his back, one of the gun-arrows disappearing. Auron dashed forward, bringing the Kotetsu up and over his head, and sliced through the displaced gun-arrow even as it appeared in front of his past self's eye.

Auron landed heavily and again heard Xigbar's exclamation of "What the hell?" He felt the long silence as his past self looked at him in utter shock.

"Don't stand there!" Auron barked. "Move!"

His past self snapped out of it and whirled to face Xigbar. "Get my back," he said.

"Will do."

Auron saw clearly in his mind's eye Xigbar staring, openmouthed, from where he hung partially upside-down in the air. It was his turn to get his back, so he couldn't see the Nobody, but he heard him say, "How the… impossible! How're there two of you?"

"No idea," Auron's past self replied, and charged. Xigbar snapped out of it and simultaneously fired off a multitude of random space displacements and a volley. Auron saw half the gun-arrows appear before him, trying to zero in on his past self's back. He grunted and smashed the incoming bolts, hearing his past self batting away the bolts coming at him from the front, charging even faster. There: the fatal mistake, Xigbar displacing himself and forgetting to cover it. Boots ground on stone and the Kotetsu sang in the air as Auron's past self whirled and hurled the sword.

Auron followed its path just in time to see it shoot through the air and through Xigbar's stomach, pinning him to the wall. The wall stretched back and away, the Kotetsu slipped out of the Nobody as he rotated in midair.

"Kill you!" he roared, sounding like a broken record as he opened up with his weapons. The gun-arrows leaped forward at preternatural speed and Auron knew it was time.

"Switch!" he shouted. Auron's past self sidestepped behind him and they both charged. Auron focused and struck most of the gun-arrows out of the air, feeling pain shoot through his chest as he missed one or two. They battered their way through Xigbar's manipulations of space and were on him.

"Down!" Auron cried.

He felt his past self drop and go for the Kotetsu. Just as he was expecting, Auron felt the two simultaneous pulls. Xigbar disappeared and the wall was a bare four feet from his face.

Auron leaped, twisted up, and his feet made contact with the wall. He ran up it, pushed off into the somersault, completed it, and struck Xigbar across his body, the Nobody's attacks flashing uselessly past and exploding against the wall.

Xigbar opened his mouth in a wordless scream, then Auron lost sight of him as he landed roughly. He turned in time to see his opponent fly backwards and roll across the cavern, oozing darkness in his wake. Auron's past self readied himself for an attack that Auron knew would not come.

Xigbar staggered to his feet. There: the glare, the hateful glare at the impossibility of it all. "Two of you… how the… two…"

"Don't ask me to explain, because I don't know," Auron's past self said; Auron remained silent. His double leveled the Kotetsu at Xigbar. "It's up to you to decide whether you're staying or going."

Xigbar gave that hollow grin. "Oh, I'm goin', all right. Just remember this, Auron. You can't take me alone. You can't take any of us alone. Next time you challenge one of us, you _will_ die – or worse."

"Try it."

The Freeshooter snorted and disappeared into the blackness of a portal to the realm of darkness, which itself disappeared a moment later. Auron repressed a sigh and allowed himself to relax.

In the most literal sense imaginable, he'd saved himself.


	7. Chapter 7

"An explanation would be good," Auron's double said.

Auron, luckily, remembered his lines. "The Fates control time, obviously. When you go through that door, ask them to send you back to the proper time to save yourself. Then just do as I did."

"That's how you knew the wall was coming."

"Yes."

"And why is it that the Fates are willing to help? I thought all they were willing to do was grant me an audience."

"Ask them yourself." To tell the truth, Auron didn't know yet.

His past self nodded. "Very well, then." Auron watched him turn and head to the black door, disappearing through it a moment later. After waiting two or three minutes to make sure his past self had been sent back, Auron walked back into Destiny's Grotto.

"Why are you willing to help me?" was the first thing he asked Clotho, Lakesis, and Atropos.

"You play an important part in the elimination of Organization XIII," Lakesis replied. "We do not normally weave threads to require direct interaction with us in order to achieve destiny, but your case is exceptional in more than one respect."

"What would that part be?" Auron asked, hoping for an answer but knowing he would not get one.

"You know what we will, or will not, say to that," Clotho chided him, prodding him with one of her forelegs. "You are already in a uniquely fortuitous position in that we are obligated by our own design to aid you. Do not push too hard."

Atropos made a hissing sound of agreement. "That made clear, warrior, we are prepared to bestow great power upon your thread in order to allow you to complete your role. If you do not make your demands too extravagant, I may reveal some of your future to you – as a sort of parting favor." She clicked her chelicerae together. "After all, we do not expect to see you again."

"I will need the ability to enter and leave the realm of darkness at will," Auron said. "And I am not keen on opening my heart to darkness in order to be able to do so."

With a hissing laugh, Lakesis ran the tip of her foreleg along the thread within the groove of her rod. Auron felt a rushing sensation of power and his spatial awareness expanded by what seemed like exponential degrees. There was so much out there, and he had access to it all… and there was only one place he needed to go.

The World That Never Was.

"The realm of darkness is deeply tied into the timeline," Clotho said, her beady eyes shining with Auron's reflection on their opaque blackness. "You can feel a sense of the way things will go now, yes?"

Auron closed his eye and tilted his head, feeling. "Somewhat. I can tell… I can tell that Sora…" He raised an eyebrow. "I can sense something like echoes of a scream, a confrontation. Sora, and Riku, whom I met in the darkness, and Xemnas – their voices are there. I can't hear what they're saying."

"If you could, as we do, then you would be able to determine the outcome of the battle," Lakesis observed. "But that is not a power you need."

"I think this is all I require," Auron said after a moment of thought. "I have to go, to confront Xemnas. It's a losing battle to be sure, but it's what must be done."

"I told you I would tell you something of your future if you kept your demands from being too extravagant, warrior, and so I will," Atropos interrupted. "It is Xemnas you go to face, but it is another that is your destined opponent. Do not make any mistake there."

Not Xemnas? That meant that Auron might have a chance to survive after all. If he was fighting someone whose future was not as clear as Xemnas's, he might defeat them yet. Still, the memory of his fight with Xigbar was still fresh in his mind, and he knew he would have lost if he hadn't had access to the Fates to send him back in time. A second stunt like that wouldn't work. The other Organization members' powers might differ from Xigbar's, but they were all undoubtedly just as lethal.

If there were two of him again… An idea came to Auron. It was a bizarre idea, stupid and risky, and he almost rejected it out of hand, but he scrutinized it, reconsidered it, and realized that the Moirae were all watching him very intently.

"You expect me to ask for this as well, don't you."

"I expected you to say that," Lakesis hissed. "I never anticipated a question." She ran her foreleg along his thread again. Auron felt no change, but he had a feeling, more than a feeling, knowledge of an absolute truth, that he was ready for what lay ahead.

He started to manifest himself a portal to the realm of darkness, then he stopped and turned back to the Fates. "I almost forgot. Thank you."

"Truly a moment in history," Atropos stridulated. "A cog in the machine thanks the one who makes it turn."

"True, but I should still thank you. After all, if you hadn't arranged for Xigbar to fight me, I never would have thought up the second power you gave me, and my fate would be absolutely sealed instead of merely uncertain."

Lakesis made an unpleasant clicking sound. "Indeed. Now go before we find ourselves regretting this particular course of events."

Auron nodded and focused. He reached into the void of his now-extraspatial awareness, tugged…

The portal opened up in front of him, swirling and oscillating in the dim light. With one last look at the Moirae – the three fat spiders sitting in the middle of the infinite web – he walked in and let the darkness take him.

* * *

In the sky, a massive heart-shaped moon glowed with an ephemeral light. The castle hung silhouetted against it, less than a shadow and more than an illusion. Upon its uppermost parapet, the Altar of Naught thrust itself up at the celestial spheres as if in a bold shout of "this is who we are." On the nonexistent altar stood Xemnas, gazing out over the city arrayed below him.

He felt rather than heard the portal open behind him. Footsteps sounded on the whiteness of the altar and Auron emerged, Kotetsu at the ready. The portal closed behind him and he said, "Xemnas. You know why I'm here."

Xemnas made no immediate reply, continuing to gaze out on the dead and nonexistent city below him.

"Answer me! Are you ready to fight?" Auron demanded.

"I see no reason for us to fight, Roxuan," Xemnas replied. "You will help us soon enough."

"Roxuan is not my name," Auron said, his voice low. "Call me that again and I will kill you where you stand, lord of all Nobodies or no."

"Besides," the Nobody continued as though Auron had not spoken, "you did not come here to fight – at least not with me. You came because you have questions, or at least a question: why you?"

Auron nodded. "That's right. I understand the sheer scale of this multiverse now – I can feel the focal nodes of power scattered throughout it, shining like beacons, drawing Heartless and Nobodies. One of them is –" he dropped his gaze – "is right down there, and he is angry."

Slowly, Xemnas's gaze skittered over buildings and boulevards to come to rest on a figure standing on the precipice of oblivion: Sora. He was staring defiantly up at the castle, and before either Auron or Xemnas could say anything further, the weapon flashed and a shimmering path exploded into being, leading up towards the bottom entrance of the Organization's stronghold.

"He is coming," Auron said, "and from what I have seen of him, he is not the sort to exercise discretion. We have until he gets here to settle our own personal issue, or he will meddle and make it impossible to get anywhere."

"So like the Keyblade to choose one of that nature," Xemnas murmured.

"Indeed. Why me, Xemnas? There are many others that the Organization could try to sink its fangs into. I do not endorse it, do not mistake me – what I want to know is why you display such interest in acquiring _my_ Nobody."

"Such potential. Your power could be amazing if only you would allow yourself to unlock it. Instead you remain trapped in that wasteful shell, void of the strength that should be yours." Xemnas turned and strode to within two feet of Auron. "I am interested in you because of that potential. However, I was not the one that discovered you."

Auron narrowed his eye. "Tell me who it was. Was it Xigbar? Was that why he was so interested in me in the Underworld?"

"The Freeshooter had instructions not to kill you," Xemnas said, his lip curling. "He disobeyed them rather spectacularly in his attempt to stop you outside Destiny's Grotto. You also substantially drained him; his strength is barely at half of what it should be. I doubt he will be able to do much to slow Sora down, but he should give us time."

"Then who?" Auron demanded. "If not Xigbar, then who?"

Xemnas gave Auron a cold, unfeeling smile. "I could tell you, but we must all seek our own answers, and it is so much better to show you. Come with me."

He strode past the wary guardian and began to descend the winding path. Cautiously, Auron followed him, not removing the Kotetsu from his shoulder. They left the Altar of Naught behind as they continued to descend, entering a giant open space that seemed to descend all the way down to the basement of the castle. Various platforms were suspended motionless in space, and Xemnas picked out the nearest one and headed for it. He stepped into empty air and a crystalline path materialized beneath his feet.

Auron followed, then jerked and almost lashed out when four Nobodies appeared in a concentric formation around Xemnas. He had never seen this type before: it was little more than a flowing robe, its sleeves folding into one another as though its nonexistent hands were clasped. Around each Nobody floated hard extrusions of space, shaped into iridescent, vaguely red-colored cubes.

"Do not worry," Xemnas said. "They are merely my personal bodyguards. I can dismiss them if you like."

"No need," Auron forced out through clenched teeth. He could not let this get to him. They descended ever further, passing out of the huge chamber, walking down more white pathways, until they emerged into one of the strangest rooms Auron had ever seen.

From where he stood, it sloped sharply downwards in a series of rows that formed a kind of staggered stairs with a straight ramp in the middle. There were name panels embedded in the floor, most of them glowing red.

Auron descended to the first level, looking at the two names, one on the left side of the room and the other on the right. The one on the left glowed blue and showed a picture of a familiar projectile weapon. "Number Two, the Freeshooter," Auron read. He turned and looked at the panel opposite, which was glowing red. "Number Three, the Whirlwind Lancer."

"This is our Proof of Existence," Xemnas said. "It is no more real than anything else in this World That Never Was, but it is the only thing we have. Without these names, these nonexistent realities, we would be less than nothing. They give us meaning, allow us to function in at least some capacity as higher beings."

"I don't see your name panel."

Again came the cold smile. "This entire castle, this entire world, is my proof. I need nothing here." He turned and pointed at a keyhole-shaped portal that rose out of the floor, glowing a light blue. "There in the Addled Impasse is where you will find your answers. I look forward to seeing you again, Roxuan."

Auron felt his anger flare and he pivoted on his heel, swinging around in a lightning-fast blow to cut Xemnas in two, but the Nobody was already gone. The Kotetsu sang through empty air and Auron wrestled it to a halt, frustration pounding in his veins.

Still, he was so close, so very close. He stalked over to the portal and looked down at the name panel in front of it. It glowed blue, emblazoned with what looked like a claymore.

It read: _Number Seven, the Luna Diviner._

Auron looked at the portal in front of him, felt something stir beyond its membrane. He took a deep breath and walked through it.

* * *

Auron emerged in a small hallway which opened up into a giant room, one side of which was entirely glass or some other transparent material. Through the glass shone a massive heart-shaped moon, and bathing in the light of the moon was a black-robed figure.

Something about the figure made Auron's pulse begin to race. His vision blurred and he blinked to clear it, stepping forward with suddenly-heavy legs. The man turned…

There was nothing recognizable in him. Violent orange eyes stared hatefully out of a pale-skinned face that might have been handsome if it had not been horribly marred by a crude pair of scars slashed across it between the eyes, forming a grisly letter x. The mouth smiled in a demonic grin but there was no emotion behind it; blue hair stood up in shocks on top of the head and fell past the shoulders everywhere else, with pointed, vaguely elfin ears protruding from it. One hand clasped a massive spiked claymore in a reverse grip.

"Auron. I suppose it's good to see you."

His head starting to swim, Auron leveled the Kotetsu at the apparition, the demon man in the moon. "Who…"

"Saïx," the man introduced himself. "Tell me, what was my real name, Auron? What was the name you knew me by?"

Nothing recognizable. And yet at the core of his being, just as he had known back in Destiny's Grotto that he was ready, Auron knew that what he saw before him and what he felt was the truth.

"Braska!" The name burst out of him, almost bending him double with the force of its falling upon the air.

"Was that it?" Saïx asked, slowly advancing. "Braska? Everything is clear to me now that I have the name. Pity that I doubt I could have formed a good name from it; it's just as well that by the time of my birth I'd forgotten it completely."

"How is this possible?" Auron asked. "You know what happened to Jecht, don't you? How could he be with me, in the Underworld, and you – or a part of you – be here?"

"Am I my former self's keeper?" Saïx countered. "I know what happened to him, but _of_ him I remember nothing. It doesn't particularly matter. You are here, and that _does_."

"You're the one that wants my Nobody."

"Correct. I do not remember Braska the man, but I remember you quite well – quite well, Auron. Even from the earliest moments of my life, if one can call it a life, I felt that beyond existence and a heart, I was missing something. Could it be fraternity? Could I, a heartless and emotionless being, miss a former compatriot and comrade-at-arms, a man whose face I barely remembered?"

"I –"

"I listened to Xemnas's painstaking logic. We do not have hearts, though we remember having them, he said. We must truly exist, he said. We do not have emotions, but we must act as though we do to preserve their memory and our purpose for what we do, he said." His orange eyes flashed. "I played the role. I turned myself into the emotionless clockwork soldier. It was easy, Auron – I have no heart, after all. But this emptiness, this void… I cannot fill it with logic or comforting emotionlessness. That is why Axel escaped us, even when I was given orders to give him the maximum punishment – I let him go because I knew how he _felt_."

Auron felt himself instinctively backing away. He could feel Saïx's intensity from across the room, the barely restrained raw power, and he wondered if it was possible to win, even with his countermeasures in place.

"He wanted to see again the only man he ever felt any kind of connection with – Roxas, the Keyblade master's Nobody. I imagine Axel felt as though he had a heart when he was with him. This is all we want, Auron; we want to feel as though we are real, as though we have hearts."

"But you seem –"

The word _real_ died on Auron's lips even as Saïx threw it at him. "Real? I am not real. None of this is real. The emptiness and pain I suffer every waking moment: it is the emptiness and pain of a nonbeing, a thing that has no right to existence, and as such it is useless and meaningless. I have no moral basis to try to ease this suffering because I should not be suffering in the first place, because I should not _be_ in the first place." He hefted the claymore and slammed its head against the ground, the impact sending a shockwave through the ground around him. "Not two minutes ago, I sent the Heartless against Sora. I expect that Xigbar will be along shortly to try to slow the Keyblade master down; I doubt he will succeed. Not one minute ago, I received permission from Xemnas to stop the charade. How long I've waited to hear that, I said. How long I've waited to be able to stop pretending to be a husk, to be an emotionless shell of what should be a man!

"I will no longer shut my eyes and keep my voice silent. I will no longer willingly go deaf as the truth screams around me. I will no longer be forcibly insensate when there is a world to be experienced. If I have no heart, then so be it. If I have no emotions, then so be it. What I want has nothing and everything to do with these things. I am going to take back my right to feel, to be empty and alone and to want to fill up my emptiness with fraternity, and I am going to start with you."

Auron tensed as he felt the gathering energy, the attack imminent. He felt the dead air of the Addled Impasse pick up and begin to turn to howling wind as the power of the heart-shaped moon poured into the demon approaching.

"BRASKA!" Auron shouted over the gale. "YOU DON'T HAVE TO DO THIS! TRY TO REMEMBER WHO YOU WERE! YOU CAN COME BACK!"

The blow was like the world shattering around his ears. For a long moment Auron felt nothing, and then the pain hit him as he slammed hard into the window. The Kotetsu rang in sharp protest, pressed hard into Auron's torso from blocking the enormously powerful strike he had just been hit with.

"DO NOT CALL ME THAT!" Auron's opponent screamed. "I AM DONE WITH WHO I WAS OR WHAT I SHOULD HAVE BEEN! AGAINST EVERYTHING, I AM, AND WILL BE!

"I!

"AM!

"SAÏX!"


	8. Chapter 8

The wind was howling wildly, rampantly, rapaciously, cutting through Auron's coat and slicing at him with icy fingers.

In front of him, Death stalked forward.

This was no grim reaper, though it was clad in black. This was Saïx, a demon from the place farthest from light, a mad vortex of whirling rage and deadly purpose sharpened to lethal perfection, a whirling dervish of immortal brutality that glowed bright blue with destructive energy. Auron stood his ground against the oncoming storm of hateful power, back against the window through which streamed the light of the heart-shaped moon, the Kotetsu ready. The wind batted at his face and he blinked to clear his vision.

In that instant, Saïx screamed, a bloodcurdling, ululating cry that made Auron grind his teeth, and sprang forward, tearing a hole in the air as he moved, an oncoming front slamming into the guardian before the Nobody was even close. Saïx twisted on his heel as he rode the air, sending himself into a spin, the claymore spiraling about him and coming around to take Auron's head clean off his shoulders with its blunt edge.

Auron barely ducked in time. The weapon scythed through the air above him, blowing into glass that had the resilience of metal and sending it flying in glittering pieces. Saïx roared and kept going through his spin, bringing his foot around to connect solidly with Auron's side, sending him flying.

He felt ribs break and he hit the wall, a good ten meters away, with a horrid cracking sound. Auron managed a landing, barely keeping his feet, staggering to stay standing. Saïx reversed directions and charged again, claymore trailing across the ground behind him, sending blue sparks shooting up behind its passage and etching cracks into the white floor.

The Nobody was inside Auron's defenses before the guardian could even get them up. He barely managed to twist out of the way of the straight-on strike that his opponent delivered. There was a tremendous sound that nearly deafened him, and Auron desperately twisted himself around, trying to land a hit.

It was utterly useless. Even as he registered the fact that the noise had been Saïx's blow pulverizing a giant-sized chunk of the wall, the Nobody snapped his head around, eyes blazing, and reached up with a gloved hand and caught the Kotetsu. He grunted, his arm bent a bit, but he stopped Auron's blow dead.

"There is a reason I am second-in-command even though I am Number Seven," Saïx growled. "You think you're powerful, Auron, because you managed to survive against Xigbar? I heard all about the extenuating circumstances of that battle. You exploited the nearby Grotto of Destiny in order to go back in time and face Xigbar with two of yourself. He himself was still recovering from the not-unconsiderable expenditure of energy involved in corrupting a guardian spirit of a nearby world – if he had been at full strength, not only would he have killed you, he would have gotten rid of Sora at an earlier point in time, as well." Saïx pushed the Kotetsu down and stepped in close to Auron until they were almost nose-to-nose, a crazed grin on his face.

"Compared to me, Xigbar is a _child_."

He let go of the Kotetsu and cuffed Auron across the face, the force of the blow enough to send the man sprawling. "You always did try to do everything yourself, Auron."

Auron spat blood and wiped at his mouth, getting to his feet again and ignoring the pain shooting all up and down his body. "You… remember?"

"Who can say?" Saïx asked. "What _is_ there to remember? We died, Auron, or at least you and Braska did. I do not recall what it was like to be Braska, only what happened to him and to those around him. I didn't even have his _name_ until you gave it to me. All I have, all I have ever had, were two things: myself, which does not exist, and memories of a dead world and a dead man who might not even be real themselves."

"Fine," Auron said. "Yes, this is unfair to you. But Braska… How was he taken? How did the Heartless infiltrate Spira and take him?"

Saïx opened his mouth to answer, then his eyes glazed and he shook his head. "No," he growled, the anger returning to his voice. "You will deal with _me._ We are not here to talk about Braska. You can't know the truth… not until you've reached the absolute edge. It will be what tips you over, that much I am sure of."

"I came here in search of Braska," Auron said, his own temper flaring. He was at a sore disadvantage, but he was not going to let a man with the mind of a selfish child get in his way. "I intend to find him, even if I have to go through you."

Saïx flared up blue again, energy cresting, and Auron felt the wave hit him a second before the Nobody did, a full-on shoulder-slam that took him in the chest and sent him flying again to bounce across the floor and skid to a halt against the wall.

"GO THROUGH ME? GO THROUGH _ME_?" Saïx roared. He crouched and leapt five meters in the air, claymore in his hand, and hung there, suspended by the torrential pulsing aura of his power. "YOU TALK AS THOUGH I AM NOTHING! WHAT IF I AM NOTHING? WHAT DOES THAT MAKE YOU? LESS THAN NOTHING! A FOOL IN PURSUIT OF THE MEMORY OF AN ETERNALLY LOST MAN, ENGAGING IN FUTILE HOPE AFTER FUTILE HOPE IN A DESPERATE ATTEMPT TO JUSTIFY HIS EXISTENCE!" He hurled the claymore and it zeroed in on Auron, a projectile of amazing mass going at speed, its destructive force enough to crush a man to jelly.

There was the explosive sound of air rushing out of a space and a moment later the claymore hit and exploded into blinding blue flame.

Auron stood, Kotetsu held in a reverse grip in one hand. The floor two feet from him had been reduced to a smoking crater, and the blade of his sword still rang from the impact of slamming aside the incoming claymore.

"At least," Auron said softly, "I have an existence to justify." Saïx flinched as though he'd been slapped and he drifted slowly back to earth, his power leaking out in massive waves.

"If the unjustifiable need to fill the nonexistent emptiness within your nonbeing defines you, then why do you seek to extirpate it?" Auron asked. "Do not excise it from yourself, but instead fill it. Help others. Their continued existences will thereby justify your own. It is not fraternity you miss, but instead that fullness gained _from_ collusion with others, with aiding them. Trust me, Saïx." On an impulse, Auron extended his hand, the Kotetsu still in it. "I can help you."

Saïx looked down at the floor for a long moment, raised his eyes back up to meet Auron's.

And then he exploded.

The very force of it threw Auron off his feet, something he was becoming distinctly tired of. He forced himself into a recovery, landing upright, in time to see Saïx's hands flare with blue fire and a claymore appear in each. "YOU THINK YOU CAN HELP ME, AURON?" he screamed. "YOU REALLY THINK I SEEK TO BE WHOLE? YOU COLOSSAL FOOL!"

He rocketed forward, guttering flames trailing in his wake, both claymores swinging around in a curving attack, the bottom of one scraping across the top of the other. The way he was charging, the claymores would intersect and crush Auron's head between them. Thinking quickly, Auron brought up the Kotetsu, springing backwards at the same time. Saïx's claymores caught the Kotetsu between them, the horrible vibrations ripping the blade from Auron's grip, the collision repulsing all the air from a three-meter radius around them. The sound was beyond description, a ringing, deafening explosion that trailed instantly off into vacuum-silence, taxing Auron's hearing to the limit.

The guardian did not miss his opening. Auron rushed forward, letting the air being sucked back into the vacuum propel him, and snatched the Kotetsu out of thin air, wrenching it around to bring squarely down on Saïx's shoulder. It bit in deeply, the finely honed edge grinding against the bone and splintering through it, halting as it hit the Nobody's sternum.

However, instead of blackness as Auron had expected, pure explosive power gushed from the wound a moment after it had been inflicted, blasting his entire front side and blowing the Kotetsu clean out of Saïx's body and Auron's grip. The Nobody's arm drooped limply, the claymore slipping from his hand.

It was not enough. Saïx still had a clean grip on his other weapon, and he rammed the sharp pommel end into Auron's gut, doubling him over and collapsing him, windless, against the Nobody's body as the Kotetsu clattered to the floor, impossibly far away.

"Did I ever say," Saïx hissed into the silence, "that I wanted to fill up my emptiness with fraternity? Did I ever say I wanted your Nobody for that purpose, Auron?" He dropped the claymore, grabbed Auron by the collar, and slammed him up against the wall, holding him a good meter off the floor. "Let me explain it to you, Auron. Xemnas is a fool. He thinks we should exist again as whole beings. It is his greatest aspiration, his ultimate goal in life, as it were – if I can even call what he has a life. I do not share his views."

"What do you believe, then?" Auron managed through the blood in his mouth and his breathlessness.

"Nothing," Saïx replied with a wild grin. "I believe in nothing, Auron. Why should we try to attain something when it is so much easier to reduce everything to nothing? I never said I wanted to fill up my emptiness with fraternity, I said I wanted to win back the _right_ to do so. Can I be truly angry right now? No! It is because I do not have emotions, because I do not have a heart, that I cannot be truly angry, but I still feel rage. Whether it is just the memory of it or the reality – what a subjective term that is! – I feel it. It pounds through my empty veins in lieu of the blood I do not have. I exist, subsist, am defined, by it. And it is time I directed that rage more 'constructively.'"

Auron stared. "You can't possibly be serious."

"I can't possibly _be_ , so serious is out of the question, is it? It's so simple, Auron. Don't you see? I have no right to existence, no right to emotion, no right to fullness, _because_ I do not exist. Instead of trying to appease whatever cruel powers that be and regain my rights, I merely need to instead deprive everyone else of them. There you have equality."

"You're insane."

"I wanted you to be the first, in honor of the past that is not mine and never was. Jecht, too, once I had your Nobody. I would destroy Sora and his meddlesome friends, and then I would show Xemnas the extent of my devotion to our glorious and noble cause."

"A cause that doesn't exist," Auron growled.

Saïx nodded, his grin widening. "A nonexistent cause calls for no loyalty, and neither does a leader who is nothing. You see? I am perfectly justified in taking matters into my own hands."

"You said you didn't need justification." It was getting hard to breathe.

"I never have. By speaking to you and beating you and being ready to kill you I act without it." Saïx whirled, still keeping hold of Auron's coat, and slammed the guardian to the ground, staring down at him. "By having an _appreciation for the irony of the situation_ , even." He looked up through the shattered window at the moon. "Yes, Kingdom Hearts. Gather more hearts, gestate, increase your power. Sora has kindly gathered them for you, and Xemnas has kindly kept you safe for me."

Auron groaned and tried to rise, but Saïx kicked him sharply in the side. "None of that. I'm not through with you yet."

It was very clear to Auron the depth of trouble he and the entirety of existence were in. He had been wrong; Saïx was not insane. He was the most perfectly sane person ever, fully recognizing the absurdity and meaninglessness of his existence, if it could be called that, and at the same time resolving to continue through doing what he felt was necessary. At its core, his struggle was the struggle of the disenfranchised against those in power.

That did not mean he was in the right.

"If you do this," Auron said hoarsely, "you will be no different from those who would see you destroyed for your very nature."

"You have that a tad backwards," Saïx laughed. "I think you mean to say that if I do this, those who would see me destroyed for my very nature will be no different from _me_." He crouched over Auron, studying his face. "You fool. You honestly thought you could stop the Luna Diviner? You thought you could stop destiny?"

"What happened to Braska?" Auron asked.

Saïx hesitated, then nodded. "I did say you would be on the brink, the precipice, that this would push you over. Well, then, I'll tell you. The same thing happened to him that happened to me: his eyes were opened and he had to do something about what he saw."

Auron blinked. "Don't speak in riddles. You said you remembered everything that happened to him when you heard his name. Tell me, _now_." He was in no position to make demands, but…

The Nobody shrugged and leaned in close, mouth at Auron's ear. "If you want to know," he hissed, his breath hot on the side of Auron's head, "then know this: _it was his fault_."

Auron jerked. "That's not possible."

"It was quite possible," Saïx laughed, withdrawing. "It happened, after all. Braska, Braska… you were such an idealistic fool."

"You said you remembered nothing of him! How can you call him that without even knowing who he was?"

"I lied," Saïx said, his demonic grin increasing. "It's a skill that takes some practice, but I've had plenty convincing Xemnas that my dearest, most 'heartfelt' desire is to exist. I know the man who gave this nonlife to me, and he was a fool. An endless cycle, perpetuated by Yevon to keep that world trapped in its eternal spiral of death, and he chose to go along with it, knowing full well the consequences!

"But the fool, the _hypocrite_ , after spending so many years in peace in the Farplane while both his guardians suffered endlessly in the mortal world, finally chose to act to try to break the cycle – and not even for either of them! Yes, it was when his daughter decided to become a summoner that he decided to do something."

Auron bared his teeth in a snarl, but he knew it was useless. Saïx shook his head and kept going. "Precious Yuna, who he couldn't bear to see go and sacrifice herself. His guardians, his friends, had been sacrificing themselves for years, and only now did he move! He strained and pushed against the confines of the Farplane, trying to reach her but ultimately failing, and so he did the last thing he could, the last thing anyone can do." The Nobody tapped Auron's chest meaningfully with an index finger. "He opened his heart to darkness."

_No._

"He wouldn't," Auron protested.

"Oh, he did. The fact that you are here now, listening to this, is proof of it. To save his wonderful daughter, motivated out of misguided love, he became the first Heartless. I was born then, though I don't remember it. I can only imagine, knowing Braska's strength of will, that upon becoming a Heartless he retained at least some of his faculties, enough to know that his purpose was to destroy Sin and break the cycle that would soon consume his daughter. Naturally, the Heartless failed." He gestured grandiosely, pointing to himself after flourishing his arms. "And when the breach he created in the fabric between the worlds widened and the Heartless and the darkness poured in, I left to seek my own fortunes, eventually finding my purpose and my name here with Organization XIII."

"Your name…"

"Yes." Saïx ran his fingertips down his face as though making sure it was still attached. "Braska was dead when he became a Heartless. I had no memories of his life until much later, as they began to surface of their own accord. I did not even have his name, which you just supplied, that would help me fill in the gaps and bring the rest into clear focus. All I had, all I could go on, were three letters I remembered from the name of the world Braska was native to: S, I, and A."

"Spira," Auron murmured. "That is all you had, then? Three letters?"

"Those three letters were more concrete than I ever was. Rearranging them, no matter how small a change – crafting them, creating something, gave me definition, enough that I realized it was nothing just as I was. There is no justice for Nobodies, so we create our own; there is no life for Nobodies, so we steal our own; there is no help for Nobodies, so we help ourselves." He looked down at Auron as though seeing him for the first time. "And now, Auron, you have a choice, something that I was never given. You can die here and now, cease to exist completely… or you can open your heart to darkness and give me your Nobody, and so cease to exist but continue to anyway in defiance of everything.

"What are you going to do?"

Auron shook his head. "Isn't it obvious, Saïx? There is only one last thing I can do, one last thing anyone can do."

"Then do it," Saïx said.

And Auron opened his heart to darkness.


	9. Chapter 9

Saïx stood back and grinned as he watched the darkness envelop Auron in its greedy embrace, consuming his form entirely. The black mass rose off of the floor and into the air out of it rose a single, glittering heart.

It was only a moment later when the Nobody realized something was very wrong.

The heart continued to shine brilliantly, floating in the air, rotating slowly on its axis. Beneath it, the black mass that had been Auron's body twisted and convulsed grotesquely like an elastic shell trying desperately to contain something that wanted equally desperately to get out.

"Not right," Saïx growled, involuntarily drawing back a pace. This wasn't how it went. The physical form was enveloped by darkness, the heart plucked and transformed into a Heartless. The Nobody should take shape immediately after the darkness discarded the useless physical shell.

Why, then, was Auron's heart continuing to shine pure and untouched?

Something in the cloud of darkness gave way and it exploded in a blast of anti-light, a wave of pure black that Saïx had to shield his eyes from, its intensity was so great. The anti-light slowly faded and the Nobody focused upon the thing standing in the center of the blast.

It was Auron, but not Auron: he looked younger, stronger, and he had no wounds from the fight that had been raging, though he still only had one eye. His red coat was gone, replaced by a pitch-black Organization robe that differed from the usual design in that it had white trim along the sleeves and bottom of the hem. As usual, his left sleeve hung empty at his side; his left hand showed out the unzipped front of the coat, the arm inside. The Kotetsu was gone, and at Auron's side rested a sheathed katana that looked, for a Nobody's weapon, somewhat unremarkable.

"What… how did you…"

Saïx, for the first time, was unable to form a coherent sentence.

Auron smirked, and darkness curled up about him and formed itself into a Heartless, an insubstantial yellow-eyed face that hovered behind him, peering over his left shoulder at Saïx as a predator regarded a piece of meat. "Surprised? The Moirae were kind enough to weave this power into my thread."

"I don't understand," Saïx gaped. "You're not Roxuan."

"No, I'm not. I'm who I've always been." Auron held up his right hand, pointing at the heart glittering in the air. "That's me; I simply have control over this Nobody shell. After seeing Xigbar's capabilities, I knew that I wasn't up to the task of defeating any Organization XIII members in a solo fight, so I decided that I would need the power of you Nobodies in order to finish what I started. Once I return my heart to this body, I'll be whole again and this Nobody, as well as the demi-Heartless created during its birth, will cease to exist."

Saïx looked at the grinning Heartless that floated behind Auron, calculating in the back of his mind. Xehanort's Heartless had used a similar familiar-type, but that had been a full Heartless, capable of attacking and absorbing punishment. This new creature, this demi-Heartless, was nothing more than a shadow, a reflection of what might have been. Could it be of any use to Auron in combat?

"You don't have to worry, Saïx," Auron said, seeing the Nobody's gaze. "This is, after all, just a shadow. But a shadow serves my purposes."

In the next moment the demi-Heartless disappeared from behind him and Saïx felt an awful premonition a second before it came to pass: the creature reappeared in a giant size, a great partly-transparent cloud of darkness, and it did so right in front of the window in through which the light of Kingdom Hearts streamed.

"It's just a supposition," Auron commented, drawing his katana, "but I think you absorb power from Kingdom Hearts in order to increase your attack potential. I'm not accustomed to fighting in this body and you have an advantage of power; this, along with the wound I gave you on your shoulder, should help even things out."

Saïx took up a claymore and examined the katana pointed at him. The blade was razor-sharp and of extremely fine craftsmanship, displaying what might be akin to a Damascus patterning on the blade, something that was strictly out of context with the origins of the weapon. He stared and stared hard, knowing that the first move was Auron's.

Then the worst thing possible, the unexpected, happened. Auron dropped into a crouch, spreading his legs to shoulder length and grinding his heels into the floor, drawing the katana back, still pointing it at Saïx, and he said, "Strike him dead, Masamune."

He thrust forward with amazing force, heels still firm against the ground, and with a snapping sound the blade came alive and doubled, tripled in length, kept coming, hurtling at Saïx, who had no time to dodge –

The Nobody snapped his claymore up, barely managing to angle the thrust away from his head with the end of the weapon's pommel. The Masamune kept extending at an amazing rate until it pierced into the wall behind Saïx and blew a huge hole in it, the force of the impact transmitting all the way back down the blade and pounding Auron, his heels crushing the ground beneath him and leaving cracked footprints.

Saïx seized the opening and hurtled forward, but he wasn't going as fast as he would have been had Kingdom Hearts's power not been denied to him. Auron shifted and pulled back and the rigid blade curled, whipping around and nearly scoring Saïx, who managed to leap away at the last moment and skid to a halt in a defensive half-crouch, claymore ready.

With a flick of his wrist, Auron retracted the Masamune's length to perhaps twice what it had been originally, the blade dancing around him fluidly, responding to the tiniest movements of his hand. "Don't take me lightly, Saïx. By the end of today, one of us is going to be dead."

A split second was all the warning Saïx had before the Masamune snapped rigid and lashed out in another explosive thrust. It struck his claymore dead in the center of its mass and took him straight off his feet, hurling him against the wall behind him. He hit with a tremendous sound of stone breaking, got his wits about him, dropped the claymore and leaped, summoning up a new one, favoring his injured left arm and shoulder. If it came down to it, he was sure that he could manage a two-handed blow, but for now he didn't want to risk it.

The leap was a mistake. The Masamune was abruptly four times shorter than it had been when it had crushed him against the wall, and it was a whipcord again, a biting serpent, and it snaked past his too-hasty guard and scored him across the abdomen. A twist of Auron's wrist and it wrapped itself around Saïx's claymore.

Auron smirked and pulled hard, using his power over the Masamune to reduce its length at the same time. The claymore was ripped from Saïx's grasp and the Nobody's leap was turned into an abortive somersault. He landed in a crouch, the slash on his stomach leaking power, and he turned in time to see his captured claymore before it broadsided him across his face.

When he had been out of Saïx's line of vision, Auron had whipped himself around into a twirl, lengthening the Masamune at the same time, to bring it around in a perfectly scored blow with the claymore against his opponent. Saïx went down with a horrid smack, skull ringing against the floor, miraculously not showing signs of external damage.

Auron let the claymore go of his sword's grip and retracted the blade, returned the sword to a rigid posture, and assumed the ready stance for the thrust again. "Are you done already?"

Slowly, painfully, Saïx gained his feet. His vision was blurry, his head ringing; he was wounded and slowed while his opponent was unharmed, and his main source of power was denied to him. It was an impossible situation.

"Don't act stupid," Saïx snarled. "You think that's enough to finish me?" He reached out his good arm and manifested a claymore in his hand, drew it in front of him, touched the point to the floor. "Let me show you, Auron, precisely why they call me the Luna Diviner."

Auron felt a shriek in the back of his mind as his demi-Heartless was completely annihilated. Waves of power surged from Kingdom Hearts and pierced through the insubstantial creature, drawn irresistibly by Saïx's aura. He roared and erupted into blue flame, the wounds on his shoulder and stomach knitting and healing in an instant, the wind picking up again as it had at the beginning of the fight.

"KINGDOM HEARTS," Saïx thundered, "IS MINE! YOU THOUGHT YOU COULD OCCLUDE ITS CONNECTION TO ME WITH A PALE IMITATION OF A HEARTLESS? YOU DISAPPOINT ME!"

A moment before he charged, Auron felt Saïx's aura disperse and drop to nothing. That was a bad sign; the Nobody was keeping all his power contained, increasing its pressure and destructive potential. A single claymore strike would undoubtedly pulverize Auron's own Nobody completely.

He wouldn't have it any other way.

Saïx rocketed forward, an unstoppable force, and Auron leaned into the force and the brutality and the power and let it take him. This was beyond fighting for Braska or existence or crude ideological differences of opinion – this was fighting for him. All his life he'd raised his sword for others, whether to protect them or further their aims; now he raised his sword because if he didn't, nobody else would.

"This is my story," he whispered into the deafening gale that roared at him, "and you're not part of it."

Auron drew back and then thrust forward, the Masamune piercing through the oncoming front of air and meeting the head of Saïx's claymore dead-on. He put all of his concentration on it, knowing that no matter what happened he could not surrender even an inch of the sword's length. The blade screamed and shook as Saïx's immense force ran down it and nearly made Auron stagger. He managed to keep his footing, digging his heels even further into the ground beneath him, chips and pieces of the material the castle was made of floating up in the immense explosion of power.

Saïx's voice reached him as though from a great distance, barely audible through the noise of his charge. "DIE!"

"No," Auron murmured. In his mind, he apologized to Braska.

The Masamune went from rigid to fluid in an instant and doubled in length again, curling and snarling in on itself, and Saïx, carried by his own unstoppable momentum, flew right into its razor-sharp coils.

Everything went completely silent. The wind died, the screaming rush of Saïx's aborted charge ceased to register; even the massive claymore dropped to the ground in complete silence. Just like before, there was no air through which to carry the sound waves; a vacuum had been created from sheer power. This time, however, the source of that power was spewing from the dozens of deep lacerations stitched across Saïx's body, exploding outwards in a violent blue fireball that quickly turned pure white.

The explosion died and the air rushed back in just in time to transmit the ominous, final sound of Saïx hitting the ground with a solid thud.

Auron stood from where he'd dropped to one knee, sheathing the Masamune. He looked up at his heart, or rather he caused his Nobody to look up at him, and two became one again. The black-clad demon disappeared and was replaced by a guardian, covered from head to toe in wounds, barely able to lift the massive Kotetsu. Even as he returned to normal, he felt that power slip away from him; he would never use it again.

He'd won.

"So, then," Saïx murmured. "What do you intend to do now, Auron?"

Auron looked down at his defeated foe, taking in the myriad slashes he'd inflicted, wounds that continued to ooze bluish-black power. "I hadn't really thought about it. The important thing was that I won."

"And now that you've won? Do you intend to kill me, remove me from existence? Or are you to find that morally objectionable as well?"

"I –"

"You hypocrite," Saïx sighed. "You speak so proudly of protecting others and your sword swings with the mercilessness of a demon. Erase me, then. Do what you feel is necessary for the role of the guardian. Protect those from whom I would deprive their existence. Perhaps you'll finally understand, once you've done this, just why we wanted to exist."

"You're being the hypocrite here," Auron said. "Stop lying to yourself. You don't want to exist. You've never wanted to exist, despite the fact that Xemnas told you that you should. Who were you to simply follow orders blindly? Existing because you were told to would be no different than wallowing in nonexistence because you were told to. You took your own path, and existence was never part of that."

"I told you I'm a good liar," the Nobody chuckled. "Though, I suppose, all Nobodies are intrinsically good liars. One must truly be a master of the art if one is to fool oneself as we do every day."

"It doesn't have to be this way, Saïx. Who is to say that you don't exist? The truths of our existence are defined by us, not by anyone else. We decide what we want to do with our lives, regardless of what others tell us we should do, and we walk our own paths. Isn't that what you've been doing?"

"I would say that I find the irony of the situation to be delicious, but that would be a lie."

"The way we make others recognize us and acknowledge is our existence is through pursuit of a noble purpose that defines who we are and what our function in life is. _Noble purpose,_ Saïx. Something that others can see you do and for which they can appreciate you. If you find your own purpose and carry it out to the best of your abilities, whether that purpose is to protect others or to make things equal, you will be more than just a Nobody. You will be Someone."

"A wonderful notion, but one I'll have to pass on," Saïx sighed. "I'm afraid that in your pursuit of this purpose of yours, Auron, you've blinded yourself to a plain and simple truth: not everyone can be saved. Not everyone is capable of finding a noble purpose in their life, existence, whatever they may have. Perhaps if I had an existence a purpose would accompany it, but I see no reason to continue this nonlife. Kill me and be done with it."

Ignoring the pain of his wounds, Auron strode to stand over Saïx. He extended a hand to the wounded Nobody and pulled him to his feet. "If that's what you want, to cease to not exist, I won't stop you. However…"

He tossed the Kotetsu and Saïx instinctively caught it by the pommel. "I intend to disprove your theory. I think you do have some reason to continue in whatever you call your being, and I don't think you can't be saved." Auron turned and showed Saïx his back. "Go on. If it's really that easy to reduce me from existence to nonexistence, if this fits into your purpose and affirms who you are, that's a price I'm willing to pay. Kill me and acknowledge that it's a reason to go on, and then by extension acknowledge that going on at all means you're not nothing." He shrugged. "Of course, if you're not willing or not capable…"

There was silence except for the sound of the Kotetsu being raised, slowly, its blade cutting through the air. Nothing was said; as the fight had gone beyond petty reasoning, this had now gone beyond words. Saïx stood poised to cut Auron clean in two, and Auron stood calmly, back to his enemy, ready for the feel of cold steel cleaving into his back. Perhaps when Saïx had recognized the value of his existence, whatever it might be, something of Braska…

One such something came to Auron.

" _Now listen well all you who'd hear_

" _And hearken to this psalm_ …"

Silence.

Then:

" _Forever will we live in fear_

"' _Till comes Eternal Calm_."

Saïx remembered. Auron heard a sharp intake of breath, the kind that might signal surprise or might signal a sword-strike in the next instant.

In that next instant, a portal of darkness blossomed in front of Auron and Xemnas stepped out, looking vaguely irritated. "I'm sorry if I'm interrupting anything," he said drily, eyes taking in the scene in one sweep and disregarding it as meaningless. "Saïx, I thought you should know that Sora will undoubtedly be arriving shortly. Xigbar and Luxord are both dead; you are his next target."

"Understood," Saïx said, his voice betraying no hint of emotion. Just as abruptly as he'd entered, Xemnas left.

For a long moment nothing happened, then Saïx sighed and tossed the Kotetsu back to Auron, who caught it over his shoulder without looking. "Unfortunately, the matter of Sora seems to require my attention, Auron. We have no more time."

Auron turned to regard Saïx. The mad, grieving Nobody was gone, replaced with nothing but a flat, emotionless shell. Whether it was a regression or an evolution, Auron couldn't say for sure. "I'll return in an hour. After you've disposed of Sora, we can finish this."

"Agreed. In an hour, then."

With a curt nod, Auron turned and opened himself a portal to the realm of darkness. He stepped through, leaving Saïx and The World That Never Was behind.

Auron gazed off into the infinite space of the realm of darkness and felt a bitter smile form on his face. "I'm sorry, Braska," he murmured. "I tried so hard to find something of you in him… and now he's going to die. I doubt there'll be anything left in an hour."

He sank down and rested his head on his knees. No, there would be nothing left, not after Sora was finished there.

If, of course, there had been anything there to begin with.

* * *

The portal closed, and Saïx was alone.

He could feel the Keyblade master's approach; his solitude was not to last. He felt dark strands of power trickle from Xemnas to him, healing his wounds and restoring the Addled Impasse. A token farewell gift, as it were. Saïx had been too badly beaten to have more than a quarter of his power left, even with his wounds mended and abode intact.

Why had he hesitated to kill Auron? What origin did that second half of the rhyme have in his memory? It puzzled him.

As for Auron himself, Saïx knew the man was only doing what he felt was right, even if he was dead wrong. There was no escaping the reality of being a Nobody; Auron's experience had been distorted by the fact that he had still had a heart. Saïx had no purpose in existing because he did not exist. He would never be acknowledged by those in existence for having done anything to help them. He lied to himself, telling himself he had emotions when he did not, telling himself he was outraged at the injustice of his situation when all that motivated him was logic.

It was impossible. He would never be able to redeem himself.

Then an idea struck Saïx, one that pleased him insofar as he was able to be pleased. It was a simple matter, absurdly simple, now that he thought about it. He would never have a noble purpose to call his own, true… but there was no reason he couldn't invent himself one.

That was it. He would tell himself he had a noble purpose in life, as Auron suggested, and see where that went. Whether or not he would kill Auron in an hour's time was still up for debate, depending upon the purpose he chose to simulate. He might recover his power and pursue Kingdom Hearts again, or he might leave Xemnas his prize and pursue his own fortunes. There were so many possibilities, and Saïx was excited, truly excited, or at least he told himself he was, and that was good enough. Perhaps, one day, he could even invent himself a heart.

Of course, Sora would never understand. He would definitely have to die, but that was the way of things. There were worse fates.

And so it was that as Saïx waited for his impending doom, he was happy for the first time.


	10. Chapter 10

An hour later, and the Addled Impasse was silent.

Auron could almost hear the echoes of conflict, hollow screams that were ultimately without substance. He looked about at the nothingness that surrounded him and felt it as clearly as he'd felt Saïx's fist grinding into his face. Was that all the man had been, then?

Sheets of energy rippled through The World That Never Was, and Auron instinctively recognized the imminent collapse. He gazed out the window and saw that Kingdom Hearts had been shattered. The giant moon was no longer there.

He opened another portal and stepped through, materializing in the void above the Altar of Naught. It was not difficult to stay aloft through force of will; the world was collapsing and the overtaxed threads of reality were snapping. Sora and his friends were down there, and even as Auron watched, a portal opened at the behest of a blond-haired young woman who stepped through and motioned at the group to follow her.

There was only reason that The World That Never Was would be coming apart, and it was an obvious one. Xemnas had lost control of it, or at least had no more reason to maintain it. Undoubtedly Sora was bound for a final confrontation with him – Auron could detect the Nobody's immense aura approaching, a threat clear as day. None of those gathered on the Altar of Naught noticed, and the guardian was not surprised in the least. The only reason he could detect Xemnas was because the man was only shrouding his approach from his attackers.

They would deal with him. Auron could not protect Sora from destiny.

He stepped back into the realm of darkness, leaving the dying world behind, and a moment later was back in the Underworld. He could feel the barriers cracking here, too; the dead were disappearing, going back to their original worlds that had been eaten up by the tides of darkness. A good deal of time had also passed in the second he'd spent in the realm of darkness – it had been destabilizing and time had speeded forward like a needle skipping over a record. Auron didn't pretend to understand what was happening, but he felt it could only be for the best.

The stairway out of the Underworld shimmered temptingly, and Auron ascended it, gazing up at the light piercing into the blackness until he emerged into the day. Hercules, Megara, the hero's trainer Philoctetes, and the winged horse Pegasus stood in front of the newly-restored Olympus Coliseum, admiring their handiwork.

"Auron."

Time ground to a halt and Auron turned to see two familiar faces.

"It's not possible," he breathed.

"Not probable," Braska corrected him. "What can I say? I don't believe I understand it either."

Both the summoner and Jecht were wreathed in pyreflies, their ethereal forms flickering and wavering. Auron looked down at himself and saw that he, too, had become transparent, as though being reminded of how fleeting his existence was. "What's going on?"

"Dunno, but I say we take advantage of it," Jecht said. "Can you feel it, Auron? Spira's back. We can leave, go back to where and how we were. I got no idea how that punk kid managed it, but drifters like us are being given a ticket home. Seems to me that he and his gang are probably getting their tickets, too."

An image flashed into Auron's mind: Sora swimming towards a beach, a red-haired girl awaiting him expectantly, hand outstretched…

"Braska…" he started.

"I know," Braska said. "I'm s-"

"Don't apologize," Auron cut him off. "You did the only thing you could, given the circumstances. You could never have known the consequences, and it looks as though it's all going to work out at any rate." On an impulse, he stepped forward and put a hand on Braska's shoulder. "I know how you felt. I did the same thing, after all."

Braska smiled, pained. "Of course. Thank you, Auron."

"I'll make sure she knows," Auron promised. "She will not walk into the trap unprepared." He turned to Jecht. "And I'll continue to keep your son safe."

"You better. Kid's got a bright future, I'd say."

Whatever Hades had done to restore him to life, Auron felt it wearing off. His body was dulling, becoming cold again as it had always been since outside Bevelle when he'd died. Spira pulled at him, calling him back.

"Before we go," he said, "I have another question for you, Braska. Do you remember what Saïx did?"

Braska shrugged. "Fragments. I remember that for someone who had no emotions, he was remarkably skilled at portraying them."

"I meant, do you remember what he did to bring you back? How did he do it? I'm sure Sora killed him, so how did he reconcile his existence and restore your being?"

"My heart was absorbed by Kingdom Hearts after my Heartless was killed, that much I'm sure of," Braska replied. "So it was just a matter of taking it back, I think, but it was more than that. It was my heart, not Saïx's, and taking it into himself would have been impossible if he hadn't made a choice."

"What choice?"

The summoner closed his eyes, searching. "I remember it clearly. He asked for his heart, and Kingdom Hearts obliged him as he faded to nothing. In his last moments, he chose to believe that it had all been a joke, as it were, that his existence was nothing but a momentary distraction in my own, and that he was, essentially, me."

Auron stared for a long moment as the implications clicked in his mind. "In other words…"

"He lied to himself. There was nothing else to it. It certainly wasn't real, what he chose to believe, but choosing to believe it made it real."

The guardian nodded contemplatively. "That would make sense. For a being like Saïx, the truth of whose existence was nothing more than a lie… I suppose it was easier for him to blur the line between the two extremes." He looked up. "I will be seeing the both of you."

"Stay true to yourself," Braska said, his expression showing the slightest hint of amusement.

"See ya," Jecht added.

They were gone, and Auron was facing the Coliseum again, with the clock resuming its steady march forward. He looked up at the sky and decided to follow time's example.

 _This is my story,_ he thought, _and it's time to resume it._

With a small smile, Auron turned and faded away, passing out of everything in the world and returning to Spira.

The next chapter of his story awaited him.


End file.
